I read this quote, from an article called Celebrity Terrorism by Paul Cornish, in relation to the terrorist attacks on Mumbai -
'These individuals indulge in terrorism simply because they can, while their audience concocts a rationale on their behalf .'
Try swapping the word 'terrorism' for 'art'...
And then read his final paragraph -
'The invitation to the world's D-list malcontents reads as follows: No matter how corrupt your moral sense, how contorted your view of the world, how vapid and inarticulate your ideas, how talentless you are and how exaggerated your grievance, an obsessive audience will watch your every move and turn you into what you most want to be...'
5 comments:
My goodness, that is powerful. Wow!
I've been thinking a little along those lines lately as the media here goes through presidential campaign withdrawal. Now they are focusing on the president-elect's choices of advisers and appointed positions like head of state. Speculating whether choosing so and so will turn out to be an issue, a questionable choice. And I thought, Not unless YOU make it an issue. Filling the 24 hr news cycle makes for some ridiculous musings that are as far from reporting of the news as one can get. They manufacture a great deal to keep those airways from going silent.
You hit the nail on the head Sheila - the need to fill up the 24 hour rolling news means the news stations are jumping on everything and making it a big deal. In the worst case, I think innocent men died horrific deaths in Iraq because the kidnappers knew it would make great news and it would be beamed all over the world. As the Mumbai story unfolded 'experts' were wheeled in to news studios to tell us that the 'terrorists' has achieved exactly what they wanted because of all the coverage on the news! The reporters and news stations are in effect accomplices, IMO. Makes me angry when they say they are providing what we the viewers want!
I see similarities with art - a lot of crap dressed up as having higher significance and people jumping on the bandwagon exploiting opportunity.
Sooo smart, changing terrorism with art (or it was art with terrorism?) is a brilliant disturbing great idea. For the coverage about terrorism, I agree too. I'm grateful when I see media as El Pais refusing on the last times to open the newspaper with these kind of facts (they put it small on the lower part of the front page, if I would be a terrorist I'd feel very angry)
Felicity, you might be interested in reading this post on Ed Winkleman's blog:
http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2008/11/cultivating-cult-of-personality-or-not.html
It speaks to this idea of bandwagon exploitation in the art world.
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