Musings on authenticity.1

This what art college has done to my brain.
I see something such as this, and i cannot help but think it might be an art piece. I have come across artists who have done things like this. Left a series of photos about someone in distress, that are completely staged.
They will stick to the narrative completely and either not answer back or keep in character to monitor the reactions of others.
What do others think?.
Is it real or fake?.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ardentattenuation/sets/72157622753950201/with/4134580829/
It hardly matters really because of the discussion it raises about the notion of authenticity. In the internet age we all share out lives and thoughts, the anonymity, which is a false belief, replaces the confessional. Replaces the talking we would have with friends. We live in a world of disconnection, we do not talk to neighbours since we no longer rely on them for information, for support. We have no common bond, no tv shows we would all watch together, the internet has fractured us from our community at the same time as it has bonded us to a displaced, shifting  online diaspora.
 Why am i looking at this womans life, i have no concern for her, i view her sufferings almost dispassionately. I know nothing of her. Yet at the click of a button i can access her most intimate moments in life.
  Of course it is intimacy viewed at a distance,  we are looking at strangers who open their lives. And as suported by the first paragraph, we are open to manipulation.
People become their own online propoganda.

If you have thoughts, comment. Thanks, i would love to her your views.

English actor director producer.

http://voicesbychance.blogspot.com/
I am a big fan of this talented director and actor. Please check his blog for  his work and acting.
Movies are going to change from this guy.

Can be like Warhol and Basquiat and be that commited?.-celebrities in art, celebrities as art.=work in progress.

I am surprised this has the number of views it has, i suspect it is due to the title.Ultimately the idea for the rough draft photoshop was an investigation in to the nature of advertising in art, (that i was intending to return to later) something Basquiat and Warhol both created art about in their careers.

 I photo shopped images of Kim Kardashian and Amanda Bynes on to an Amazon screengrab of a yoghurt maker. The masturbation subtext of the joke being obvious. But i was interested in the way female celebrities use sexuality to sell films , books, music or themselves. Kim K got famous because she released a sex tape with a minor singer who was only  known for being the brother of a more famous celebrity Brandy. Who now is a judge on American Idol

 Prior to the sex tape she was known for being the girlfriend of athletes, and no one had heard of her family.
Amanda Bynes career in to adult roles stalled despite starring in a series of underwear photo shoots in mens magazines. But her face and images, now she is having a public breakdown, are appropriated by artists and the media and anyone with a computer.

Basquiat created an alter ego Samo (pronounced 'same-oh') with  artist Al Diaz while they were in highschool. The word Samo stands for 'same old shit'. Basquiat turned Samo in to a street guru, littering buildings and shops with meaningless aphorisms and affirmations like 'clap your hands and say yeah' that mirrored the bill boards and posters he grew up with.

Leading us to question the nature of advertisements ourselves and our relation to them. Increasingly advertisers have moved beyond the simple selling of the benefits of a product and now wish to establish an emotional connection, using something called signifiers. Buy this product and buy this lifestyle, buy this product and be this person. Basquiat himself now is a celebrity, albeit a dead one and his image is appropriated. (I shall research who owns his estate)

Ironic since Warhol and Basquiat among others were artists who sought to subvert how the media viewed them as artists and celebrities.

Various street artists have used celebrities in art , with the celebrities features far removed, in the artists hands, from their original source. We can see this effect with Shepheard Faireys Andre the giant.

In which the french wrestlers face is pressed in to a tight frame, the white relief almost abstract, the image is threatening. Large bold letters offer a single instruction. Is it a critique of government propoganda or corporate manipulation.
In any case, artists were now taking the images of celebrities they are deluged with, and using them the same way the celebrities themselves do. The images of celebs become product of a corporation, like Tesco towells, or own brand loo roll generic enough to be cheap, different enough to sail under copyright.

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Thanks for reading- work in progress.

The Three Wishes test.-Critical thinking.

I was on a psychology forum  when i came across an interesting post, that gave me a chance to engage in critical thinking and analyse the hidden meanings behind the responses.

Someone posed the  question ''what would you do with three wishes?''. They sold it as a narrative, that you found a genie in a lamp (for genie we can think God, Fate). The narrative had rules: you had could not wish for extra wishes, or more genies, this was to pin people down to making interesting, diverse responses. If people type 'unlimited wishes' then there is no further need to elaborate. However, i found a commonality between the responses and so I filtered them down to three, which covered , broadly, most of the posters replies.

The three most common wishes were:

1.I want people to have sex with me.  -             Sexual attractiveness, potency, rape fantasy- power over  others, domination.

     2. I want no harm to come to my loved ones.-       The ability to detain fate (natural process), control.

     3.Immortality and power.                                      Narcissism, god complex, fantasy of success.

It becomes interesting to examine the hidden motive behind this fantasy of gaining power and to think about what this says both about the respondents to the question and to the psychology of human beings.

The first one was probably more of a younger persons wish, a lot of students use the site.
1.all women want to have sex with me.

There were a few responses from women, but they tended to focus on physical improvements,such as movie star looks or perfect body’s. as did a lot of the men (thought penis size in their case was one of the most common responses). This really meant they wanted to feel more attractive to people, and by intimation, less lonely.

 The next most common wish was family orientated, summed up best as:
2. i want no harm to come to my loved ones 

Some of the replies wanted to bestow wealth and health on their family, some wished for diseases to go away, for fathers and mothers to return. For rifts to be healed. Having family and friends gives us a sense of identity, a society within a society in which we have those valuable checks and balances that allow us to feel needed and wanted.
The third was divided in to two , one philanthropic, one narcissistic. They can equally be best summed up as:
3. World peace, no war or poverty.

This can be linked directly with the ‘no harm to loved ones’ in the number two wish. We could argue that the observer expectancy effect comes in to play here. The ones who post tailor their responses to put themselves in a good light in the hope of receiving peer approval. Which can then, be held in corollary with number one. ‘I want people to find me attractive’.
3.a immortality

Finally we come to the narcissism of being an immortal. All the responses under the umbrella term qualified their wish with good looks, and a perfect body. Some held rationale about how the prolonged life would give them time to build wealth, become a famous valuable asset to the planet.
We can now draw a line linking the three wishes, which i believe can be summed up  in this statement.
I wish for people to like and love me.

I noted apart from the odd Caligula like rant, most people wanted genuine affection from others should they attain this plateaued   position of fame, good lucks and pro longed life.
Thanks for reading, if you have comments you can do so anonymously if you wish

The Three Wishes test.

I was on a psychology forum just idly perusing, when i came across an intresting post. 

Someone asked the initially cliche question what would you do with three wishes. They sold it as a narrative, that you found a genie. That you had could not wish for extra wishes, or more genies. The responses could be filtered down in to three, each wish being a compendium of various responses within the same desire.

The first one was probably more of a younger persons wish, a lot of students use the site.

1.all women want to have sex with me.

There were a few responses from women, but they tended to focus on physical improvements,such as movie star looks or perfect body’s. as did a lot of the men (thought penis size in their case was one of the most common responses). This really meant they wanted to feel more attractive to people, and by intimation, less lonely.

 The next most common wish was family orientated, summed up best as:

2. i want no harm to come to my loved ones 

Some of the replies wanted to bestow wealth and health on their family, some wished for diseases to go away, for fathers and mothers to return. For rifts to be healed. Having family and friends gives us a sense of identity, a society within a society in which we have those valuable checks and balances that allow us to feel needed and wanted.

The third was divided in to two , one philanthropic, one narcissistic. They can equally be best summed up as:

3. World peace, no war or poverty.

This can be linked directly with the ‘no harm to loved ones’ in the number two wish. We could argue that the observer expectancy effect comes in to play here. The ones who post tailor their responses to put themselves in a good light in the hope of receiving peer approval. Which can then, be held in corollary with number one. ‘I want people to find me attractive’.

3.a immortality

Finally we come to the narcissim of being an immortal. All the responses under the umbrella term qualified their wish with good looks, and a perfect body. Some held rationale about how the prolonged life would give them time to build wealth, become a famous valuable asset to the planet.

We can now draw a line linking the three wishes, which i beleive can be summed up  in this statement.

I wish for people to like and love me.

I noted apart from the odd Caligula like rant, most people wanted genuine affection from others should they attain this plateaued   postion of fame, good lucks and pro longed life. 

Thanks for reading, if you have comments you can do so anonmously if you wish

my youtube. with amorphous blob background.

http://www.youtube.com/user/sundersart?feature=mhee#p/a/u/1/dwAFnjPa5NQ

I have made work about the amount of violence on yt  that is without context versus the crackdown on genuine female nudity . The juvenile depiction of womens bodys is something i will be returning to. As an intial attempt to address this, i took the amorphous blob image from the Max Hardcore stendahl syndrome video and made it my background image. The idea being an enlarged image of a breast becomes unoffensive as it is reduced to abstract colours. So we are forced to re think what it is we find so dangerous.

Please visit my yt, i have some art videos on and will be making more. If you have yt, add me and i will always add back and leave  positive comments on your videos.