Ivor Tossel on social networking!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/audio/ivorcast0109.mp3

Zach R

Today at 12:51am

From Ivor Tossell's webcast on G&M,

there are things you can't say on facebook, like you are feeling sad, facebook and sad doesn't mix. facebook and twitter is like the bird section at the pet store, lots of incessant chirping of comments, witticism, which is mildly intriguing, but always happy.

but what happens when someone is sad and enters the birdhouse saying 'moo', things get awkward, the golden rule of social networking sites is: if you don't have anything fun to say, dont say it at all. Its like a party, keep it fun, but its going on 24/7, you fall asleep on the couch and wake up the next morning to continue chirping.

like all public spaces everyone has to perform to what is acceptable, its a straight jacket of what you can, and can't say.

you have some choices on your status updates and comments, you can be droll, ironic, drolly ironic, detached, or pretending to be frustrated with something in such a way that indicates that you are really fine with it and underneath it all you're viewing the situation with a sense of droll irony.

at the end of the day, or year, its all very pleasant but what you have left is just chirping.

the things that matter in life, great conflicts and considerations simply cant fit into social networking sites... everyone puts on a happy mask, and for some the most exciting part of it all is the happy masquerade

http://www.whiteelephant.ca/ if you want to check out his web commentaries

Sketch #1 - [Aa]rt vs. ^[Aa]ctivis[mt]

Acts of Resistance - Dipti, Grace, Mike, Yanna

Here are the responses to the questions discussed in today's seminar:

1. We would define an act of resistance as acting against or to deconstruct the canon, institution, norm, structure, etc.

2. An act of resistance does not depend on size or scale - it is relative to the resistance to which it speaks.

3. Awareness, being oblivious or intolerant of resistant action and/or meaning determines the visibility (invisibility) of the act of resistance to others. Distinguishing forms of such invisible acts from those which are more spectacular can be likened to a top down vs. bottom up approach - a top down or spectacular approach may appear through the form of media attention whereas we likened the bottom up approach to that of recycling to resist the environmental effects of pollution, etc.

4. We employ or could employ such acts of resistance in our daily life including the aforementioned act of recycling, buying locally or nationally to resist the imminent threat of a foreign takeover, boycotting and/or manipulating (exploit?) systemic elements of institutions, etc. such as York University. Often the timeline of these particular acts of resistance span greater than our own lives but may serve to ensure a possibly brighter future for our children's children.

5. A situation in our daily lives in which we have detourned an existing system is exemplified by emphasizing or building up a trait/characteristic/sign/system, which in doing so gives personal gain - an example of this would be a resume - exploiting the truth and recreating that which has a different resultant meaning.

6. We have observed in the everyday context resistance in fighting against 'isms' (racism, sexism, communism...) as well as depressions; those phenomenons which when are not resisted cause a downward spiral out of control. For example, an economic depression may be resisted by the individual spending money. The depressed person must constantly resist their depression by acting against it.

Another observation is how we attempt to resist the simplification of language which is becoming primitive. We liken the ideas of compression of language not unlike that of audio compression – ‘lossy’ and ‘lossless’ compression. The idea of compression of language can be seen in SMS (text messaging). The trend of this perverted language is that of ‘lossy ‘compression through ambiguous abbreviations and acronyms, where meaning is lost. A resistance of this sort of controlled system is the lossless compression which uses a set boundary (in this case 160 characters per message) and finds words which hold the meaning of what may take many words to explain. This operates within the limits of a system and resists the stagnation of language.

(For questions 7-10 we did not have sufficient time to discuss.)

10 Public Guerrilla Marketing Posters

Guerrilla marketing has perfected the technique of catching people’s eyes and grabbing their attention, targeting consumers in unexpected ways and unconventional places. That, of course, is the point of this once-fringe form of advertising, which has now been taken up even by large corporations like Adidas and Microsoft. These 10 posters show just how powerful guerrilla marketing can be, whether trying to solicit donations for charitable causes or provoking you to join a gym.

http://weburbanist.com/2009/03/15/in-your-face-10-intense-public-guerrilla-marketing-posters/

Zach's favorite blogs

http://www.pinkmoose.blogspot.com/

Pink Moose, or Tangerines in a Red Net Bag is an art/politics/religion blog by a mentally troubled but brilliant cultural critic, I think I may be his only regular reader. Its a linkstravaganza, he does the surfing for you.

http://www.digitalmediatree.com/sallymckay/

Digital Media Tree is the kitschy but significant blog of Sally McKay and Lorna Mills. They review art shows in Toronto and scour the internet for 'gifs', think of it as the internet, curated. They are also feline-o-philes.

that, and Tactical Media

http://tactical4934.blogspot.com/

SKETCH #1

Welcome to the Neo-Liberal University

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"We promise to maintain exploitive social relationships."

Link of the Day Department of Culture

http://departmentofculture.ca/

The Department of Culture is a blog and group of artists or those who enjoy or produce culture in Canada (this includes you Tactical Media!). They are a community concerned with the increasingly hostile environment and attitude towards arts in Canada.