Another Media Trick To Watch and a Word to the Wise

How many issues can you name where everyone is in agreement? Nearly everything that matters has proponents and opponents. Argument is as American as pumpkin pie.

While flipping through headlines the other I saw this one: Push to oust judge over absentee vote ruling sparks outcry

It's really a perfect setup for a fight, isn't it? If you're a journalist on a slow news day all you need to pick any issue or action by a public official and add the words, sparks an outcry or creates an uproar or incites a furor.

Nearly anything can be turned into an argument. Check out this headline: Tom Brady called 'Racist' for winning Super Bowl during Black History Month. Who could have predicted that headline? It's almost as if the media's primary purpose is no longer to inform but to make people angry. 

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Here's an article that encourages writers to find ways to create controversy, or build on it, in order to corral eyeballs, get more readers. She begins by stating:

Many people want to avoid controversy, but "smart Publicity Hounds know controversy commands attention. And they use it a variety of ways to claim their time in the spotlight."

Make people angry. That's how you get readers. Carry that notion over into television and the film industry, and you have precisely what is going on today. 

Marshall McLuhan observed this more than 60 years ago. "The young today cannot follow narrative but they are alert to drama. They cannot bear description but they love landscape and action."

and...

Nobody can doubt that the entire range of applied science contributes to the very format of a newspaper. But the headline is a feature which began with the Napoleonic Wars. The headline is a primitive shout of rage, triumph, fear, or warning, and newspapers have thrived on wars ever since.

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Journalists on both Left and Right use the tactic. My hope is that we become more discerning as readers and consumers of media. 

The root of "discernment" is Discern. Discern means to perceive, find out, detect. We're to be alert detectives looking for clues as to why this story has been told and the spin has been put on it. 

The origin of the word conveys the meaning "distinguish (between) separate" things. Beneath that is the Latin discernere -- "to separate, set apart, divide, distinguish, sift."

In other words, separate gold from muck like a miner with his pan. Or separate fake news from real. Or recognize when we are being manipulated vs. being assisted. (Yes, news can be informative.)

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There are a gazillion things happening at any moment in time. When the media became our conduit through which we learn about the happenings in the world it also appointed itself as divine arbiter to dictate to us what we should be paying attention to, and how to interpret it.

As media consumers we need to get better at discerning the spin, differentiating between information and manipulation.

Use discernment. Don't just mindlessly accept what you see and hear. 

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Related Link

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Twin Ports Art In May -- and More

It appears that Governor Walz has extended the quarantine for two more weeks. Alas, we may not get out to many events in person yet. Nevertheless, there are lots of things happening virtually. Here is the link to the TWIN PORTS ART blog maintained by Esther Piszczek.

There will be no Dylan Fest this month, though you might catch a few virtual events.
Follow on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/duluthdylanfest/

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The All-Seeing HAL from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
Exactly how much is Big Brother watching us today?

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I see this and wonder what Scott Murphy is up to these days.

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Same for Tanja Sell and many of our other fine local painters.

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Marshall McLuhan talked about Pattern Recognition. William Gibson wrote about it.

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Related Links

Paintings, drawings at my Many Faces of Ennyman blog, 2010

Plus things art that I posted there in 2015 

Fall Schedule for DAI Announced: Another Exciting Season Coming Up

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." ~Thomas Merton

The Thomas Merton quote above comes from a page of quotes around the theme "What Is Art?" What I find interesting here is how the quotes seem to say more about the speaker than the topic. That only makes sense. If as Marshall McLuhan once wrote (and Warhol likewise said) "art is whatever you can get away with," then a definition of art must fall under the spell of the same definition.

In seeking a suitable quote to open a blog post about upcoming events at the Duluth Art Institute, I found a rewarding website called Brain Pickings.

I like this one by Fellini: "All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography." If you replace the word art with"life" you might get away with saying the same thing. Which leads to the admonition to beware of throwing your pearls before swine.

Alas! Here's a Fall/Winter Schedule for the DAI with a lot to look froward to.

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From the Basement: Brent Kusterman, Sept. 22 - Nov. 6, 2016
The work of Brent Kusterman is raw and immediate, layered and mythic. His paintings incorporate found objects and collage, and are focused on keeping the process of art making visible to the viewer. Kustermann is not afraid of a heavy line or rich colors and generates a constant tension throughout the work. A combination of abstract gesture mixed with figural quotations create a middle ground for mind wandering in his canvases.

Rust & Flow: David Everett, Sept. 22 - Nov. 16, 2016
Sculptor David Everett works primarily in iron, exploring the push and pull of pairing seemingly everyday objects with larger mythological traditions. Everett’s exhibit presents two main bodies of work. In the first he transforms trash reclaimed from the beaches of Lake Superior and its tributaries into aquatic creatures and landscapes. The second combines weapons of war and violence with food and sustenance. Everett’s explorations engage us in a dialogue about the unintended consequences of what we purchase, consume, utilize and discard. [EdNote: David Everett is the artisan who transformed the designs into manhole covers for three locations on Bob Dylan Way. He also forged the official marker for the walk in front of the original home of Bob Dylan in Duluth's Central Hillside.]

Fragments/Memory: Adam McCauley, Sept. 22 - Nov. 16, 2016
Employing traditional mediums alongside craft paint, print screens, antique book covers and the universal grid, McCauley builds artwork that is purposefully based in the physical world, staunchly refusing the comforts of representation for his viewers. Built with layers and focused on the formal, McCauley’s work is at once mind bending and fresh, focused and free.

Duluth Quantum Computing Project: Storytelling in a Digital Age (Now thru TBD)
Kathy McTavish is offering free workshops and lectures exploring digital-based art throughout August and September, held at an off-site location (3 West Superior). A composer and media artist who has over 20 years of experience working at the intersection of art, science and technology, McTavish has exhibited multimedia installations at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND and at the 2015 Northern Spark Festival in Minneapolis, MN. Under her guidance the workshop experience will culminate in a collaborative installation in the downtown storefront. This project and exhibition is made possible by the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council.

My Mind’s Eye: Portraits Inspired by Shakespeare’s First Folio, October 3 - 27, 2016
In honor of Shakespeare’s First Folio visit to Duluth, The Duluth Art Institute is hosting a portrait exhibition exploring artists’ unique renditions of their favorite characters from Shakespeare’s plays. For more info on Shakespeare’s First Folio, visit: http://d.umn.edu/shakespeares-first-folio/

4North: New Works by Alison Aune, Kirsten Aune, Ann Klefstad, & Arna Rennan, Nov. 10, 2016 – Feb. 2, 2017
In her 1979 book of short stories titled “The White Album,” Joan Didion posits that “a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, and loves it so radically” that they remake it in their own image. The Duluth Art Institute’s fall exhibit, 4North, features four female artists that share a heritage from Scandanavia as well as make their home in the northern reaches of Minnesota near Duluth. While the work diverges in style and medium, the artists share grounding in their dual identity and connection to place. Threads throughout the show reveal a deep reverence for the natural world and the translation and transmutation of patterns and symbols. Four women artists— Alison Aune, Arna Rennan, Ann Klefstad, and Kirsten Aune—create work that sings in harmony and connects viewers to their own personal home, wherever that may be. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of enhancement events.

61st Arrowhead Regional Biennial

Started in 1919, the Arrowhead Regional Biennial features some of the best artwork coming out of the upper Midwest, showcasing the work of exciting contemporary artists from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada. Three awards will be named on the evening of the opening reception with almost $2,000 worth of prizes.

Dyani White Hawk will serve as the Juror this year. White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota) earned her MFA in studio arts in 2011 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a 2015 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Regional Artist Fellowship recipient, 2014 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant recipient, 2013 McKnight Visual Arts Fellowship recipient, a 2012 SWAIA Discovery Fellowship recipient and won the 2011 Best of Classification at the Santa F e Indian Art Market. She draws from her multi-cultural background and education to create paintings and mixed media works that speak to her upbringing as a Lakota woman in an urban American landscape. This exhibition is sponsored by the Depot Foundation and the North Shore Bank of Commerce.

About the Duluth Art Institute 
The Duluth Art Institute is a 109-year-old nonprofit organization—one of the oldest art centers in Minnesota. The mission of the Duluth Art Institute is to enrich daily life with dynamic, innovative visual arts programming that upholds excellence and promotes active community participation. For more information, visit www.duluthartinstitute.org. The Duluth Art Institute's programs and services are made possible through the support of contributing members of the Duluth Art Institute, Bush Foundation, Depot Foundation, Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation by the State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Wildey H. Mitchell Family Foundation

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Meantime, art goes on all around you. Just do it.

The Listeners

"The more data banks record about us, the less we exist." ~Marshall McLuhan

Listening is nothing new. By that I mean, listening in by others such as eavesdroppers or Big Brother. Back when the telegraph was invented people who wanted to send messages would have to give their messages to telegraph operators who relayed the message to a receiving operator who could then deliver the message. As people began getting paranoid about sensitive information or ideas of significant value being overheard, they often devised methods of coding their messages. Buy and sell orders from stock brokers might receive such treatment, for example.

If you watch old movies you'll occasionally see scenes in which telephone operators are all connecting callers and overhearing conversations. It must have been an interesting occupation. I remember the days of "party lines" in which multiple households shared a single phone channel. When you picked up the phone to make a call, you were supposed to listen first to make sure the line was available. As a kid I remember picking up the phone once and hearing two women talking. Instead of hanging up I kept listening, until one of them scolded me, ordering me to hang up.

There are other kinds of listeners. I don't know how much phone tapping the FBI did, but we know it happened. Americans who travelled to the Soviet Union would be warned that their phones were probably tapped as well.

The Lives of Others is a powerful film about the monitoring of East Berlin residents during the Cold War. The film focuses on a Stasi officer (GDR secret police) who is listening to the apartment of a playwright and a prominent actress. Would you live differently if you knew you were being monitored?

The Nixon White House was brought down in part by it's own "listening." The president had wired up the Oval Office (and maybe more) so as to capture all his conversations... including some that he would live to regret. When the tapes were subpoenaed by a special prosecutor for the Watergate break-in, segments were erased... without explanation.

When we're active in forums and in discussions on Facebook or other social media, we may not be aware of how many people are out there lurking. The word lurker brings to mind the image of a person standing behind the curtain in your living room while your family is having an important discussion, or not so important. To lurk is to be listening but not participating.

Maybe there is a sense in which our whole news media apparatus turns us into a nation of lurkers somehow. We listen to what the talking heads tell us about events in Washington or city hall, but most people don't participate in the discussion. Sporting events differ in this regard. The fans may not be on the field, but their cheering can energize a team to give it the extra oomph they need to bring home the winning touchdown.

This week's new WikiLeaks story is about last week's leaks regarding Clinton campaign and the tactics it used to undermine Bernie Sanders. Brings back memories of the antics Nixon's campaign chiefs pulled, which earned him the not so kind epithet "Tricky Dick." It's apparent that once you're a public figure, you really don't have much privacy anymore.

The listeners aren't just listening to important people. We're all being listened to... by Target, Amazon and anyone else with something to sell. In the early 1990's, when Amazon was just a twinkle in the eye of Jeff Bezos, Erik Larson wrote a book called Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities. The book is about how companies "spy" on the private lives of consumers. One reviewer wrote:

Larson, in his clear and precise reporting, tells us how tax dollars have enabled marketers to find us, zero in on our secret wishes, and persuade us to buy things we don’t need. We are all on lists that help companies locate us, determine what we are patsies for, and how to make us empty our pocketbooks.

This was happening long before the Internet. Today it's 10X. I know that it creeps some folks out when they do a search for something unusual in the morning and an ad for the same item shows up on their Facebook page in the afternoon. Then again, proponents will argue that the consumer is always right, and what better way to give consumers what they want than to know them intimately. In other words, the marketers are listening.

Times have changed. The quantity of new info being broadcast per day is startling. When we speak out ourselves and strive to be heard, we're all too conscious of our voices being lost in the noise. And yet... it's quite apparent that someone, somewhere, really is listening.

Meantime, life goes on....

Modern Politics: It's a Clown Show

This week we experienced the fifth in a series of GOP presidential debates and though I generally attempt to avoid getting into political quandaries, a friend's Facebook post triggered a set of impressions, so I decided to briefly touch on the topic. Dan wrote:

At this stage I have no political opinions or views to express. It's a giant circus from where I sit. Yet it's a failed circus. We need a new idea. I think a real traveling circus show might provide more structure and coherence as a political party. We should elect academically trained clowns for office. The Mooseburger Clown Arts Camp in Buffalo Minnesota might be a good start for aspiring young statesmen in the midwest. Their slogan is "You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm!" This is more than just a slogan to me; it's a vision statement. This is the type of direction, leadership, and will to power attitude required to restore this once great nation back to its former glory.

Mooseburger Clown Arts Camp is a 6-day intensive clown school designed to meet the needs of people who want to learn to be “real” clowns. America needs YOU. Sign up.

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I found it strange, yet perhaps not really so strange in the context of our modern political landscape, that the substantially cynical Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) of House of Cards made an appearance during the debates in a Netflix commercial. If you've never seen it House of Cards is the epitome of cynicism, depicting politicians as greedy buffoons. Though I've watched portions of the series I've never noticed that Frank Underwood's initials were F.U. until I saw in this spot that his campaign slogan is FU '16 along with a website.

This naturally led me to think about Marshall McLuhan's take on the impact of media on the times we live in. It was McLuhan who famously observed that mass media and communication technologies are not neutral inventions but actually change the way we are. The last half century of presidential politics has demonstrated this vividly. The first hint of it came with the Nixon-Kennedy debates during the 1960 election. Twenty years later a "great communicator" was installed in the Oval Office, a man who grew up in Hollywood and knew how to project ideas to the masses.

When one looks at this year's batch of Republican hopefuls one has to wonder, who are these people? Is the media a hall of mirrors that distorts everything? What are these people really like? How can you tell?

I think the 1960 campaign altered the terrain. Elections today are essentially manipulations by handlers. And maybe Dan is right, the best way to prepare for office is to sign up for clown camp.

It reminds me of the heart-wrenching tone in which the Broadway musical presents its poignant hit Send in the Clowns.

What's it all about, Alfie?