Blog 8: Graffiti (RE:)visited

To no spectacular surprise, in a class of almost 100 students, different ideas pop up over a given assignment.  The assignment that I chose to assess other students’ blogs on was the graffiti blog.  The reasoning behind this is quite simple:  The parameters for the graffiti assignment were more constricted than others, so a broad range of analyses could be generated but still come back to a common source.  My goal here is to represent contributions by two separate students and show the theoretical debates presented in both of their studies while interlinking them to each other and to my initial analysis of graffiti under some broader themes.

Lauren Green’s blog had a strong focus on the dichotomy of graffiti as being both vandalism and art.  Both types of graffiti have certain social repercussions that need to be taken into consideration.  For graffiti art, Green mentions that it is vastly more socially acceptable.  Her examples are derived from Kerrisdale and she comments on how art is much more predominant in this area versus vandalism, which she speculates, gets removed quite quickly.  Tracey Bowen’s research touches upon this acceptance of graffiti art and goes on to looking for the reasoning as to why it is widely accepted.  Her conclusion is that cities have inherent aesthetics, and one of these is graffiti art.  It purely exists to be seen and interpreted.  Bowen goes on to state that most of the people doing art, like the pieces presented in Green’s blog, are most likely educated in the fine arts to some degree.

In regards to Green’s position on the issues presented, she notes that graffiti art is acceptable because it reflects the multiculturalist view of Canada, whereas vandalism promotes a counter-culture movement.  She also mentions that it is important not to stereotype vandalism with people considered socially ousted.

Jeff Hart's blog approaches more of the territorial aspect of graffiti.  His case study focuses on the Engineering Cairn which has a history of being vandalized by other faculties, AMS groups, and student residences.  His main argument shows that this vandalism operates in a single direction and that the engineers are simply resilient and show pride for their faculty.  Anonymous individuals tag the cairn, identifying which group they are associated with, and there are no repercussions.  It was pretty hard to find similar research to this kind of anomaly, but then I started to think about it in a different context.

Jeff Ferrell has an article dealing with how to control graffiti and resist it.  In this article he states that although graffiti can be confrontational in nature, people affected by the graffiti basically remove it and report it to authorities.  As Hart and Ferrell both discuss, repainting to remove graffiti offers another ‘clean slate’ waiting to be tagged.

Hart’s main position is that the lines between anonymity and authorship tend to get blurred in the reality that some acts of vandalism are not directly punished and have no sense of possible future retaliation.  The people vandalizing get open recognition and pride for doing something contentious, but people like the engineers just respond in silent resilience.

Under this broad umbrella of graffiti, both of these bloggers come up with very different approaches.  Green focuses more on the acceptability of graffiti art, and Hart upon vandalism.  However both cases begin to break apart many of the dualisms associated with graffiti. Anonymity and authorship both come out in the unique scenario that Hart used for a case study, and Green demonstrates the differences between art and vandalism while suggesting why art tends to avoid erasure where vandalism cannot.  Even from my research, it is fairly hard to analyze graffiti under some of these conceptions.  My Research supports Green’s statement that even educated groups tend to vandalize.  However, there was no consequence of erasure from these desks, contradicting what Green states about the removal of graffiti vandalism from other parts of the city.  It can be seen that there are many cases where graffiti can begin to break down many of the dualisms that are initially created.

References:

Ferrell, Jeff
   1995  Urban Graffiti: Crime, Control, and Resistance. Youth and Society 27:73-92.

Bowen, Tracey E.
   1999  Graffiti Art:  A Contemporary Study of Toronto Artists.  Studies in Art Education 41(1):22-39.

Blog 6: Communal Radio Waves

Radio.  It almost seems like something that is quickly fading out of existence in urban North American culture to say the least.  But even while it is being overshadowed by direct internet downloads, where people can get the music they want when they want it, radio still does reflect its community.  Vancouver is such a consumer-based economy in almost every aspect.  People are always looking for the hottest trends and the newest ideas, and obtaining them in the shortest amount of time possible.  So how does radio reflect the nature of this community?  The answer is quite simple.  The radio industry for Metro Vancouver is a marketable commodity that certain people are willing to invest into.  It follows the post-Fordist market strategies of a capitalistic society.  Just as there are many types of people in the city whether differing in ethnicity or culture, there are just as many radio stations to cater to those groups.  Radio in an urban environment seems very ambiguous.

Now in the context of small towns and target populations, radio plays a much greater unified role.  For the case of CBQM in Fort McPherson, the radio program really reflected a tight-knit community.  The radio shows targeted two main groups in this town:  the First Nations and the Church.  There has always been a checkered past between Christian missionaries and First Nations groups, but this community shows no signs of it.  This town of different backgrounds is represented by different radio shows that are held throughout the day.  One portion has First Nations hosts and another has with a Pastoral host.

Another small town vibe for radio is demonstrated in a case study by Daniel Fisher.  The Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association holds programs strictly based off of caller requests.  It is through this request program that this radio station reflects the community.  Many of the Indigenous towns are spread out, but on certain days of the week with correct satellite transfers, the radio show can reach some of the more remote towns. These towns are culturally diverse, and this diversity is portrayed through the radio call-ins.

But radio isn’t all just about representing a community.  Radio also establishes community.  This is clearly seen in both of the cases previously discussed.  Fort McPherson has a large First Nations and Caucasian Christian population, but both groups are brought together through communication via the radio.  Most events happening in this small town are announced over the radio and generally have mixed attendances, creating a kind of large family-oriented environment.  The case for Australia’s Indigenous Northern Territory communities is also fairly similar.  TEABBA helps to bridge the large distances between these culturally rich communities both geographically and socially.  The ability to call in song requests creates a time-space compression between groups of people.  It also breaks down institutionalized barriers like prisons.  It’s a means for family members to reach inmates if the distance is too far to go visit them.

So radio really does play this unique role of reflecting the community and also creating community.  I would say that this dichotomy is much more established within small rural populations because the interactions between the station and society are more transparent.  For a city like Vancouver, it is much more difficult to see how radio creates a sense of community since there are so many options in terms of radio programs to choose from, and not to mention the fact that it is slowly becoming an obsolete technology.  But for the communities that still rely heavily on radio broadcasts for entertainment, it definitely can be a tool for development and reflection.

Blog 7: Psychoanalysis of Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke (left) and Ashitaka (right)

I don’t know what consumed me to attempt a psychoanalysis of an anime film, but I thought it would be pretty entertaining anyways to try one.  But, then I just had to take it to the next step of difficulty in trying to analyze a film produced by Hayao Miyazaki.  The film I chose to watch was Princess Mononoke.  I have seen this film many times, and even in theatres when I was in elementary school.  I definitely did not take much away from the film, but watching it recently with the purpose of analysis, so much came to the surface.

The plot’s foundation rests on the character development of Ashitaka, the last Emishi prince.  Like many of Miyazaki’s films, there is no distinct ‘good’ or ‘evil’ force, and sympathetic viewpoints are consistently changing.  Ashitaka, however is the main protagonist for the film and much of the story is focused on his ability to understand himself as an individual while he relates to other important characters.  At the start of the film, he is tainted by a demon and must exile himself from his family in order to discover the root of his curse and see if it is curable.  From this point on, Ashitaka begins to rediscover his role.  Ashitaka’s journey from his family is like Lacan’s self-identification that a child experiences when detached from its mother.

In terms of developing his language, there is a lot that Ashitaka does not understand about the outside world.  Along his travels to the west, he meets a wandering monk called Jigo, who ends up playing a pivotal part in the climax of the story.  Jigo guesses Ashitaka’s background, but keeps his secrets and informs him of where to go and how to go about searching for answers.  So, as formulated by Lacan, there is this connection between language and development of a social network that is clearly visible within the film.

The main complexities of the story are developed within this social network.  There are many key players in this tale of industrialization against environmentalism.  There are the workers of Iron Town who, just as the name implies, exploit the landscape for its valuable raw materials.  The main opposition force consists of several forest guardians that are referred to as gods within the plot.  The guardians have a large following of forest creatures that seek to destroy Iron Town.  One specific guardian group has one human follower, Princess Mononoke, who views herself as a wolf rather than human.  Finally there are two mediator roles that are filled by Ashitaka and the Forest Spirit.  The Forest Spirit’s primary aim is to restore balance between the forest and humans.  Ashitaka’s role involves addressing the citizens of Iron Town through their leader, Lady Eboshi, and also the forest guardians by way of Princess Mononoke.

This complex network in a sense spirals around Ashitaka and the Forest Spirit.  They bridge the gap of understanding between the two warring sides.  There is the constant dualism of trust and treachery that is brought up in the story.  Ashitaka tries to create trust with all groups involved in order to bring peace, but once one side finds out he is communicating with the other, a sense of treachery becomes inherent.

Through all of the efforts of both sides, along with Ashitaka’s seemingly futile attempts of bringing peace, nothing is actually resolved in the end.  Iron Town ends of getting destroyed, and the Forest Spirit also ends up dying.  The film however leaves the audience with a sense of balanced peace with an uncertain future.  It is a very unique plot that demonstrates the fact that there is always two sides to any argument, and that a careful balance should be sought in order to progress.

Blog 5: Why we all just can't get along

Realism and Expressionism VS. Comedy and Satire

There are many dynamics of reusing media that I have neglected to notice.  I think a lot of this has to do with the background of my upbringing. On a foundational level, the fact that I’m half Asian probably helped hide racism from my life for a certain period of time in my childhood naivety. Finally this little dream world of mine began to crumble throughout high school and university.  Racism definitely does still exist; it can just be more easily hidden under cultural fundamentalism.

In regards to certain characteristics of whether reuse of media is considered acceptable or not, I think that all the characteristics brought up in the assignment could apply.  More importantly, these characteristics overlap with each other to make reuse acceptable or not.  The foundation for racism has traditionally been due to relative power relations, but through globalization and different uses of media there have been more distinctions between what may or may not be considered racist.  In terms of the uses of media, I think certain forms can definitely dampen down the effects of racism.  In film or on TV, the edge seems to be taken off of anything that could appear to be racist as it gets mixed up into entertainment.  This also touches upon differences between an actual impersonation and a separate form of portraying the reuse.  I think that actually impersonating another ethnicity is a much heavier burden in specific contexts, and should be addressed carefully in order to successfully represent a group without being considered ignorant.

And let us not forget the reuse of sacred symbols.  This can definitely be a touchy subject for people of different beliefs.  It is also a fairly unique case which as mentioned before, comes back down to relative power relations.  Just analyzing Christianity as an example, it can be seen that there was a definitely swap of power relations as the Church separated from the State.  With this separation came more secular world view throughout the age of enlightenment and science.  Christianity today consists of a minority group with a relatively lower level of power compared to the state.

Another thing that makes reuse of media tricky, especially within a Christian context, is the fact that there are so many divisions within Christianity.  What might seem acceptable to one group may not be for another.  An obviously important sacred symbol for Christianity is Christ.  The way that Jesus is represented in various uses of media is definitely contentious for different situations.  One example of a representation that was fairly widely accepted was in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It tried to encompass the horrific nature of crucifixion.  Regardless of the brutality of this film, it was generally acceptable for many Christians.

Now looking at Monty Python’s Life of Brian the end crucifixion scene, and the movie as a whole, is largely unaccepted by the Church.  It is in direct contestation with the Church by portraying Brian as the Messiah, and ending with a satirical crucifixion.  A blog tries to unfold whether Life of Brian is comedy or blasphemy, but you can decide that for yourself.

I think there is a loose guideline that can be applied to analyze reuse and determine its acceptability, but it is a complex concept and must be addressed within context.  Starting on a foundational level, it is generally not acceptable for a majority power to reuse media of a minority power.  Live performances are generally critiqued more than uses within media, as seen in the article by David Novak.  Between actual impersonation and a separate form, I think that this is fairly context specific and cannot really be characterized as a specific principle.  Finally, reuse of sacred symbols generally complicates all of the aforementioned characteristics and must be addressed cautiously.  But as I described, it is pretty hard to determine what acceptable reuse is before producing it.  Even with results of how people view some uses of media, it is difficult to imply specific reactions.

Blog 1: Cholera Epidemic --Where does it all go?

It has now been just over a year since the devastating earthquake in Haiti.  The death toll as a direct result of the event has been recorded at 230,000, with over 1.3 million people homeless.  This 7.0 magnitude event is nothing shy of a global disaster.  Media coverage just shortly after the event was pretty immense.  Within a matter of days, the Red Cross sent in a relief team from Geneva with two planes loaded with emergency food aid.  NGOs such as, UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, Samaritan’s Purse, and even the Red Cross instantly began asking for donations to help fund this international assistance.  However within a few months, the story just seemed to fall off the face of the planet.

As far as the general public is concerned, ‘no news is good news”.

October 19, 2010, cholera outbreaks began to be seen in Haiti’s central plateau.  These outbreaks have expanded into epidemics by around December 8, 2010.  At around this point in time, Haiti was the front page article and headline news story for many media centers around the world.  It is pretty obvious to guess what happened next.  A new cycle of advertising by the NGOs I listed, sprung up again in many ways, shapes and forms.

Now for a naïve, 22 year old university student bent on studying for exams and enjoying my winter vacation, I did not hear a word about the cholera epidemics until I returned to school in January.  I just so happened to be unfortunate enough to hear about it from the clipboard mafia at UBC.  These are the poor individuals hanging around the Tim Horton’s and White Spot who try to get you to sign up and donate for a good cause.  Most people milling about try to pretend that the clipboard mafia don’t exist, and begin to walk around more purposefully and avoid eye contact as to not become sucked in for a mere two minutes to hear about a cause.  I was one such person avoiding eye contact when one of these mafia hippies looked at me and quite abrasively asked, “do you have a moment to save a life?”
How can any decent human refuse a request like that?

I was quickly informed by this UNICEF volunteer about the cholera epidemic that is plaguing Haiti and that my monthly donation via Master or Visa Card would help turn the advancing tides of death and sorrow.  After hastily scrambling out of the situation (with the saving grace of not owning a credit card), I began to ponder where the money actually went.

After doing some brief research on various NGOs online, I quickly realized how much advertising was being done to gain donations from individuals browsing around their sites.  Almost every page I visited had a link directing me back to a form to fill out for an online donation.  With all the searching I did only one site, UNICEF, offered a vague summary of how much money would provide basic needs.  This still did not answer my question about where the money was actually going.  It also led me to believe that media is acting as more of a utility to boost donations to a certain organization, but not really solving anything on ground level in Haiti.

It seems to me that to the general North American population, Haiti was becoming a fad.  News spread like wildfire across Twitter and Facebook.  4 out of the 10 most popular topics posted on twitter were related to Haiti.  Not only is there promotion on the big social network sites, but also via text messaging service providers.  You can donate $10 dollars to Red Cross just by texting the word HAITI to 90999.  Mechanisms like these facilitate the donation process since they just tag the bill onto your monthly service provider invoice.
The idea of throwing money at Haiti without knowing where it goes is a big issue for me.  From what I gather, all of these NGOs are just offering aid in terms of doctoral care, personal water purification devices, shelter, and for the religious even prayer.  This to me seems like treating an infection with a bandage.  It’s not getting to the root of the problem:  where someone in Port-au-Prince gets their drinking water is where someone else’s bathroom is.  The infrastructure needs to be restored to beat the epidemic.  If the problem is not solved at the roots, these NGOs will have no reason to get out of Haiti and the local population will take much longer to recover.

Resources:

Direct Relief International:
http://www.directrelief.org/EmergencyResponse/2010/HaitiCholera.aspx?gclid=CJiamuuj7aYCFQRvbAodaA2GEg

Doctors Without Borders:
http://www.msf.ca/

Fox News on texting and scams:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/01/25/haiti-earthquake-aftermath-help/

UNICEF donation page:
https://secure.unicef.ca/portal/SmartDefault.aspx?at=1211&appealID=90&CID=91&gclid=CIm7npmh7aYCFRtVgwodQykVIg

Red Cross on Haiti:
http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000005&tid=003

International Rescue Committee:
http://www.rescue.org/special-reports/crisis-haiti?ms=gg_zzzz_zzz_zzzz_kg_11zzzz&gclid=CPS07dWg7aYCFQRubAodeUDuEw

Haiti Facts:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Haiti-Earthquake-Facts

Social Networking and Haiti:
http://teck.in/sms-donation-and-twitter-trends-on-haiti-earthquake.html

The Samaritan’s Purse:
http://www.samaritanspurse.ca/ourwork/reliefwork/Haiti/webinar.aspx

Blog 4: Graffiti--you are what you...write?

Satirical Support for an Islamic Extremist group? Or did the author really support them? Anonymity is the perfect mask.

I find it amusing that graffiti seems to follow some form of spatial gradient.  This said gradient can be located in almost any space, and flows from very public areas to hidden areas.  Not only is there this social gradient, but there is also an authoritative one.  Graffiti generally is not seen in police buildings, nor is it visible on the desks of teachers or administrators in educational institutions.  Instead, graffiti is found in larger quantities as far away from any form of authoritative personality and in the most hidden places. This idea became fairly obvious to me when I was just deciding on where to go in order to look for some graffiti for this assignment.  I had some ideas of where I knew graffiti was just based on where I go on a daily basis.  I ended up scouring Koerner Library’s basement stacks for suitable graffiti.

There is a definite difference between graffiti found in academic institutions compared to other locations in society.  There seems to be much deeper implications in the messages scribbled on desks in the silent study area of the library.  What exactly did I find down there?  That’s a fairly broad question.  I found graffiti ranging from racial discrimination, to sexual preferences, and all sorts of hate towards specific classes at UBC.  I should mention that I did not find any graffiti negatively portraying ANTH 378.  What was unique about this graffiti was the fact that it was not just a simple statement, but rather a running conversation in the depths and furthest corners of the library.  I remember one desk said “JEW.B.C.”, and quickly all around it were scribbles of protest voting for multiculturalism.  The swearing that followed in the argument was nothing shy of the language used on Youtube comments:  blunt and highly offensive.

Racial discrimination in graffiti "UBC needs more Niggaz."

This anonymity allows for an individual to truly state what they are thinking.  No cultural norms or taboos need to be respected in graffiti. It is just a string of consciousness of the scribe at a given time.  Gonos et al. (1976, pp. 41) states that graffiti is a pure indicator of how what values and beliefs are truly held by a community without endangering the security of the author.  This is a pretty powerful statement.  If this were the case, it would be safe to say that the student population of UBC is extreme racist, misogynous, and xenophobic.

Is this really the case for Canada?

Maybe it is.  It may not appear this way in legislation or in a classroom, but it could be in peoples’ minds. Graffiti acts as the tool for people to display their political standings.  Nwoye (1993, pp. 419) displays how graffiti in academic institutions can be used to deny mainstream beliefs and ideas of a society.  It’s entirely possible that people hold these ideas close to their hearts, and graffiti allows them to portray what they truly believe without the fear of condemnation.

A debate of what it is to be "gay".

Finally, I want to end on the fact that graffiti must be taken in the historical context of which it was first written.  McCoy (2007, pp. 173) brings up some graffiti that she observed that said “I love PK”.  She contemplates if that person still really does love PK now, and if it stirs some sort of emotional reaction when it is seen by the author.  Although the expressions that I found were very negative towards certain groups in Vancouver society, it could just be old feelings.  Maybe the original authors have a new opinion on matters concerning race and sexuality.  Is it truly fair to judge a society as Gonos et al. does in his article?  I think it is, only if you can determine that the graffiti is meant to be taken in the present historical context.  What was considered the stream of consciousness for somebody writing on a wall at one point in time could look completely different in a matter of months, especially in a university environment.  With so many interdisciplinary studies people are constantly re-evaluating their belief systems, and this comes out as new graffiti replaces or adds to existing graffiti.

The lone, contemplative author...

NOTE:  All pictures taken by Eric Fontaine.  Location of graffiti:  UBC at Koerner Library Floor 1. NE corner of building.  All from two secluded study desks among the stack of books.

Resources:

Gonos, G., Mulkern, V., & Poushinsky, N. (1976). Anonymous Expression: A Structural View of Graffiti. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 89, No. 351: 40-48.

McCoy, L. (2007). Graffiti. The Iowa Review, Vol. 37: 173-174.

Nwoye, O. G. (1993). Social Issues on Walls: Graffiti in University Lavatories. Discourse & Society, Vol. 4: 419-442.

Blog 3: JAI LO(L)--The story of how it all went wrong.

From knowledge to seduction
(Source: www.hole-in-the-wall.com, www.desinuts.com/pages/2/)

“May victory be yours”.  It’s hard to see where this sentence, the meaning of ‘Jai Ho’, fits in to anything portrayed in the Pussycat Doll version of this song.  But, as being one of the few people in North America who hasn’t watched Slumdog Millionaire, who am I to judge.  I think the degradation of the meaning of the song into portraits of scantily-dressed, seductive women has a lot to do with the reproducibility of the genre of art. Walter Benjamin describes loss of authenticity of an original piece of art as versions of it are reproduces (1936, pp. 6).  With this in mind, I thought the next logical step would be to locate the original source, and then trace all of its adaptations down to the Pussycat Doll hit version.

So, just as any good university student would, I went to the source of all knowledge on the internet:  Wikipedia.  I soon discovered that Slumdog Millionaire was an adaptation of the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup.  From this point, I wanted to figure out where the inspiration for the novel came from.  Surprisingly, there was an original project implemented in a slum of Delhi called ‘Hole in the Wall’.  Experimenters installed a computer in this slum and allowed children to interact and learn from it without any guidance or direction.

The big question is how is the Hole in the Wall Project linked to the Pussycat Doll version of Jai Ho?

This gets back to what Walter Benjamin (1936, pp. 2) was getting at when he discussed how art loses its ‘aura’ as it gets reproduced.  I had to break it down into basic concepts in order to relate each reproduced product to the next version.  What I gathered from the Hole in the Wall project website was that its main purpose was to show that the need to obtain knowledge was compulsory, and hardwired into what it is to be human.  I think this was the first and most basic form of art.  It is almost a human ritual to gain knowledge, and the ways in which the children were doing so was almost in a pure and innocent fashion.  The way that this translates over to the novel form has to do with this link of knowledge.  In the book, the main protagonist is retelling his life story to a lawyer about how he knows the answer to questions asked in a game.  Then the movie adapts this version with Jamal recounting to the authorities on how he has gained certain knowledge over time in order to win the Mumbai ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire”.  Going from the project to the interpretive movie form already depreciates the original art.  This occurs just in the way that Benjamin Walters describes in terms of a focal point (1936, pp. 4).  In the original experiment, people would analyze the behavior of these children and interpret for themselves.  The novel is a whole new form of art for this idea of knowledge.  The text mediates between the audience and the author’s interpretations of the original project art. Slumdog Millionaire, in the words of Clifford Geertz (1973, pp. 11), is just another interpretation of an interpretation.  The same basic theme of understanding how knowledge is gained is preserved, but the camera instead of text is mediating between the audience and how the script writer and director want to portray the story.

Connecting this to the original music video of ‘Jai Ho’ is a little more difficult.  The music video exemplifies the result of the movie.  Jamal is victorious in winning “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”.  And from this comes the Pussycat Doll version.  The degradation of the original art is pretty absolute.  The ‘aura’ is almost completely gone.  Trying to derive the original concept of compulsory knowledge gain from a music video including half-naked dancing girls is virtually impossible.  But, maybe the music video holds some new art form for analysis.

Works Cited

Geertz, C. (1973). Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.

Walters, B. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Los Angeles.