TAG HIJACK!

Just watched this with my boyfriend. It is available of Netflix and YouTube and Vimeo. I also just ate a weed lollipop so my thoughts may or may not be all over the place! Yay!

Here's a summary from IMDB:

The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era.

I was a bit doubtful when it started. The topics it was covering seemed really shallow and the opinions were either from hipster types or oldschool types. The answers were fairly typical responses that I have heard numerous times. I was unsure if the person behind the camera was going to push the artists to really go deep into their views. It got better quickly, although I would've liked it to go even deeper. It covered a wide range of in 90 minutes, when each subject it delved into could've easily been a 90 minute movie in itself.

The point I want to think on more when my brain isn't moving like a squiggly slug is this idea of the democratization of the art and the blurring of the line between art and artists and craft and "fixing it in post" / "creating it in post."

The guy in this section (about 2 minutes from this start point) gets on my nerves. But also brings up a point that I hadn't really thought about much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

"Art is...for better or worse...and elitist business." Art isn't art without the artist, and the art isn't art without an audience. It is by definition elitist because there has to be a distinction in order to have all these words mean what they have traditionally meant. Things shift to when artists and audience become one in the same. When you have an audience that feels so empowered that they are no longer sitting back and observing and experiencing the artist and his/her performance, purely to experience. The dynamic changes. The respect for the artist is gone, for the art that that artist created is gone.

I can't help but think the twitter comments, the videos, the photography, the texting, the blogging, that occurs whenever anyone experiences anything anymore. Movie theaters. Concerts. Art Galleries. Etc. You don't watch it to experience it, but to share and pass on to others. Where you become the artist sharing your personal experience with your personal audience. That's how it is now.

I also really enjoyed one guy who spoke about how music today is too perfect. It used to be that there were mistakes and those mistakes were vulnerabilities in the craft. Now everything is fixed in post, so much so that it is really created in post. He talks about a drummer not being able to get a certain part, and how it is just fixed in post to make it work and make it better than it could probably ever be. It's sterile and boring and off putting.

Finally, they talked about the difference between live music and downloaded music and how experiencing music has changed over the years. Music is cheap these days and not fully experienced like it used to be. The act of putting on a record and listening to it from beginning to end is gone. Music and songs are cheap - both in terms of money but also in terms of value to the audience. Everyone has access to any song they want at any time of the day. There isn't going to be a "next big thing" because our attention spans are so short and there is access to so much. Everyone has different tastes and with the pure volume of art out there, there won't be one single "big thing." They no longer value a great song or a great artist and the potential problem is that everything can eventually be mediocre.

My favorite line in the movie was in response to 'what do you think we will think when we look back on this period of time?' He said "we're probably going to be embarrassed. And ashamed."

Lot's of stuff to think about. Highly recommended.