too melodramatic? perhaps.
When I sat down to compose this, I wasn't at all sure what I was going to say. I mean, consumerism is bad right? That seems pretty simple and not really worthy of a blog post. However, despite believing - adamantly - that our patterns of consumption shape our personal relationships as well as constructions of person, when I picture consumerism, I tend to use a pretty limited scope. Tonight's playlist, for example, basically looked at shopping, and said nothing of the way that we consume music, television, books, art, media, celebrities....people. And let's be real - as a deejay, I can hardly be said to condemn media/music consumption. What makes these categories different? Are they as different as I would like to believe them to be? I'm not sure. My main man Simmel seems to suggest that, within a capitalist framework, you can't really differentiate between the ways that we look at objects, places, and people; subjected to the universalizing force of money, they become indistinguishable. However - and maybe I'm clutching at straws here - I do think that there is something fundamentally different about the way that we consume stuff, even if only in terms of environmental impact. But that feels an awful lot like rationalization. So I'm not sure. What do you think?
Anyway, on to the links!
Timely, if not quite perfectly relevant. Bitch posted this review of some really interesting contemporary poets who address pop culture in their work.
Do you know Toren? I don't, but it seems like a fair number of Middlebury-associated people do. A little while back he wrote a pretty cool article about Macklemore/Lorde and the perhaps futile effort of looking for politics in pop music. To be honest, I didn't agree with a lot of things that Toren wrote; the idea, for example, that, "We all fall somewhere on the racism spectrum, don’t we? Where’s the cutoff?" seems way too apologetic to me. But I digress. It's some good food for thought. Check it out.
Last week, over break, I attended a fascinating exhibition looking at the impact of riot grrrrl on contemporary art (it's at Vox Populi gallery in Philadelphia right now, but it's traveling, so keep an eye out). I was particularly struck by a piece by Stephanie Syjuco, in which she covered two walls of a gallery with posters with tear-off tabs that linked to not-sanctioned pdfs for books/articles dealing with the commons, DIY, public space, etc. I was so, so torn because as I got caught up in the rush of tearing off tabs (books! so many free books!), I realized that my actions - my excessive consumption - depleted the commons and the ability of future visitors to experience the exhibition (and get the books!). I'm still conflicted about the piece, but it did light a fire in me to share more pdfs. So here's Simmel. The passage I read on air tonight came from page 14, but it's all gold.
Also in the art world, I've been majorly crushing on these embroidered bodega bags from Nicoletta de la Brown. Not only are they beautiful, but they also make a really interesting statement about disposability and the attachments that we form to transient goods.
Finally, also rather timely, an exhibition opened at e-flux last week featuring the work of Mladen Stilinovic. I haven't been myself, but have it on excellent authority that it's good stuff. Even if you don't make it down to New York to check it out, you should still take a look at the curator's statement.
As ever, comments are (almost desperately) welcome. Also as ever, the playlist for tonight's show can be found here.
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