The Epistemology of Hyperreality

Shrouded in nostalgia

Veil over simulacra

That that is is not.

Noise Dreams of Rapture

Nostalgia takes root
where rhizomes circle concepts.
Words rise up to mean—

Youth Subculture:

Rebel discourse where

ideology fights culture

then assimilates.

also this: http://www.everypoet.com/haiku/default.htm

'Cause, y'know, Haikus are cool.

(Sub)culture Incorporation

Noise--streams intertwined--
break, tame, return to the Main.
We are all Others.

Haiku

"Knowledge has progressed"

Knowledge has progressed

Rhizomes sprout simulacra

We tread above ground

A (short and rather incomplete) History of American Subcultures

Dick Hebdige’s ideas are very straightforward. Culture exists, and subcultures rebel against those cultures. Once the culture recognizes the existence of the subculture; the subculture can be “trivialized, naturalized, domesticated” (2486), or the subculture can be “transformed into a meaningless exotica” (2486). While reflecting about these two approaches to dealing with subculture, I thought about the various malls by house in Phoenix and Spokane, and all the different subcultures that have been domesticated or rendered exotic and lame. Malls are sort of subculture zoos of sorts. We (the mainstream) go there to look at all the different ways we can buy subcultures that have been neutered or lobotomized to be tame. The polar bear isn’t going to try to eat me at the zoo, just as the punks aren’t going to jump out of the cage at Hot Topic. We have safe exotic subcultures, like the Silver Safari, where the continent of Africa, cheap imported crap and (gasp)piercings! can be yours for $49.99 or less!

As I was thinking about this, I tried to trace the journeys of all of the famous American subcultures, from their status of AHH! DANGER! To their demise in the mall. Here’s what I came up with:

Zoot Suit folks. In the 1940’s, specifically in LA, many young men within Latino communities wore suits that were a:

high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed pegged trousers (Spanish: tramos), and a long coat (Spanish: carlango) with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. Often zoot suiters wear a felt hat with a long feather (Spanish: tapa or tanda) and pointy, French-style shoes (Spanish: calcos). A young Malcolm X described the zoot suit as: "a killer-diller coat with a drape shape, reet pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic's cell".[4] Zoot suits usually featured a watch chain dangling from the belt to the knee or below, and then back to a side pocket.

The amount of material and tailoring required made them luxury items, so much so that the U.S. War Production Board said that they wasted materials that should be devoted to the World War II war effort.[5] This extravagance during wartime was a factor in the Zoot Suit Riots.[6]Wearing the oversized suit was a declaration of freedom and self-determination, even rebelliousness (Zoot Suits).

The Zoot suit riots were in some ways similar to the harassment and assault that many Americans faced after Sept. 11th, due to the way the dressed. However, from a Hebdige perspective, the zoot suit went on to be a mainstream fashion icon for big band dancers, and finally was even cited in pop music as something cool to wear. Total transformation from subculture to mainstream.

Current Store: The Web.

The Beats. In the 1950’s, along with rock, brought the Beats. The Beat generation was uncovered, labeled communist and/or demons, but then satirized to submission. It’s not that they themselves became domesticated, but the public became desensitized and comfortable with the image and reputation of the beats.

Current Store: Gap.

Hippies. The official title of this subculture is The Hippie Countercultural movement. We think of hippies now as the Halloween costume we see every October composed of neon colors and blonde permed wigs, when instead they actually looked like hipsters. Or were naked. Or whatever. Because they were countercultural. But in reality, hippie really is etymologically derived from the word hipster.

Hippies came. They offended. They were conquered. Hippies are now something some references by saying, “dude” and smoking a lot of pot, and reading countercultural anything? The 1960’s hipster has been so washed out into tie-dye and Mom and Pop touristy beachwear that they are no longer a threat to society. Some say this was the point of these hipsters, to force society to widen its gaze, but I think instead of making their views accepted by the mainstream, hippies instead themselves were made to be mainstreamed, negating their goal.

Current Store: Wallmart.

1970: Transitional decade that included hippies, punks, geeks, and freaks. Also drugs, androgyny, and disco. Do not have time for this mess.

Punk rock, Goths, and Heavy Metal. 1980s? Same story as the hippies. They came, they really offended, they were marketed. MTV was born out of this subculture. MTV is in many ways Hebdige’s ideas incarnate. It sort of lives to domesticate and market offensive things. Sex Pistols? Check. Rolling Stones? Check. Ozzy? Check. Madonna? Check. Brilliance though. Who else would have thought, “you know what we should do? Let’s charge bands and artists pay to make commercials, and then we’ll charge consumers to watch those commercials for the artists’ product, and we’ll tell everyone we’re the voice of the rebellious youth. And we will in no way be a cult.”

Current store: Hot Topic.

Cut to recent times:

Emo kids, Scenesters, and hipsters:

It’s the same! First emo kids only knew about emo kids. They listened to unsigned bands, and everyone made fun of them for their bangs and wristbands. Then it went mainstream and parents started joking about it, pop bands were labeled as emo, and everyone had the 2004 mullet (sadness in the front, spiky strength in the back). Hot Topic then ate the movement.

Our hipsters aren’t a novelty or a subculture. While this definition rocks, it still doesn't recognize that hipsters are almost part f the mainstream. They are known and easily referenced in most settings. 30 Rock last week had hipster cameos, and parodies exist left and right. And, the biggest sign of all that they are domesticated, the American Church knows about them. Seriously, they are two months away from being out of style. Mainstream fashion wants us to look like them, academia wants us to be as well read as them, and our parents are just now learning what they are. They are practically domesticated. Which leaves us in an upcoming transitional period of waiting for culture to devour another subculture. Who will it be next! Fingers crossed its programming nerdom.

Current Store(s): anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, American Apparel

Theory, politics, and the human "race"

Steward Hall, as a cultural critic, was interested in the material forces that drive culture. This links him to Marx. He differed from Marx, however, in the fact that he strove to “move intellectual and political paradigms from a sole focus on economic factors to a more complex understanding of the multiple determinants of people’s allegiances, attitudes, and beliefs” (1779).

As I read the Norton introduction says, his “founding work in cultural studies characteristically came to the world in the form of edited volumes in which eight to twelve authors address a topic, arguing with each other but also moving toward and overarching delineation of the factors that need to be considered if the topic is to be adequately analyzed” (1779). This sense of conversation is necessary to the whole idea of cultural criticism. Culture is always changing because people are constantly contributing to it. For this reason, cultural criticism will never contain an axiom. It will always be a growing collection of conversations encompassing more and more factors that determine and are determined by culture.

Cultural criticism will also always resist definition because it is a criticism of criticism, which changes with every critique. Hall deals with the politics of theory, a politics that inevitably changes as it is described.

Another interesting factor of cultural criticism is that it necessarily shifts the critical focus from the high art of modernism to the things that most influence the public. This means that the critical focus is on the utterances of popular culture, namely, contemporary art, especially video and other emerging urban art forms.

His focus on materialism and progressive conversation has a hint (or more) of Hegel in it (not a surprise). He seems to understand Hegel better than Hegel understood himself, because he knows that his thinking will not lead to a definitive answer. He actually calls himself a police of the theory, making sure that it never becomes conclusive. Thus, his work is “self-consciously nondogmatic, restless, and open to new ideas and changing social conditions” (1779).

Hall’s notion that art is not merely a cultural production but also a cultural determinant provides a sense of political hope. This opens the door for artists like Banksy to change the way a culture thinks. Banksy is outside of the economic structure, even undermining it by using vandalism as an art medium. This fits with the Cultural Critic’s fears of institutionalization.

British graffiti artist Banksy is a cultural critic, wrestling with many of the same tensions that Hall describes.

Hall focuses on a very concrete example of the tensions of cultural criticism: AIDS. “It’s a site at which not only people will die, but desire and pleasure will also die if certain metaphors do not survive, or survive in the wrong way. Unless we operate in this tension, we don’t know what cultural studies can do. It has to analyze certain things about the constitutive and political nature of representation itself, about its complexities, about the effects of language, about textuality as a site of life and death” (1793).

Banksy’s work is very explicitly a site of life and death. He deals with the weight of culture, but also has a rebellious sense of humor. You can tell that sometimes he is just being creative, making something different out of what is already there. On the other side of the coin, he generates disturbing social commentary by juxtaposing images of children with soldiers, weapons, or machinery.

“It [cultural criticism] constantly allows the one [political tension] to irritate, bother, and disturb the other [theoretical tension], without insisting on some final theoretical closure” (1792).

The playfulness of his work is subversive, opening up potentially new meanings for the things that he marks such as this elephant.

"The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising some people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race is a lot more streakers." –Banksy

This quote shows a theoretical view of language, by recognizing the deconstructive pun in the word “race.” At the same time it is a decisive political commentary, suggesting a propositional meaning.

What interests me most about the selection we read, “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies,” is the fact that it is an analysis of the development of theory itself as a cultural utterance. This mixing between theoretical and artistic practice opens up the door for us to analyze art itself as a kind of cultural theoretical practice. Art is a criticism of culture that is produced by the culture.

Banksy isn't completely outside of institutions either. Fox recruited him to write an opening for the Simpsons, which critiqued Fox. They used 95% of his material despite its politics because, like Banksy, they have a sense of humor that is on the edge.