Pop culture WeaVeR ChApToR 1

From Culture and Images to Popular Culture and Images

• Culture was defined but those in power. The masses had their own Culture

The Rise of Culture

• Plato, proper culture, philosophy, the imitation of truth, taught how to live
• The young, most moldable brains had to be infused with truth so they would know the fake when they saw it. 
• Plato sought to censor education, allowing only myths that taught truth, and reinforced the order of the republic. Those who wrote or spoke of the opposite were banned. 
• Poets and painters were the most dangerous people to plato
• Plato beleives people are easily duped. and cannot discern between real and fantasy, colombine natural born killers analagy *marylin mansion I would listen.
• Plato says the poet does not elevate society instead he panders to the lowly tastes and desires fo the masses, and is seductive
• Rousou argued against building a theatre in geneva, saying the people would be too busy watching plays, and talking of them and would not complete there work
• Kant, defender of culture, Conflict of the Faculties, penned the first statement in defense of academic freedom, agreed with plato, philosophy is the only route to obtain culture
• Kant wanted academics to have more freedom, but denied the masses more freedom that could challenge the king.  freedom and rational thought were beyond the masses.
• 1870's there is a shift from philosophy and fine arts creating culutre  to literature and liberal arts.
• Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, thought for his nation england to reach full potential, english schools should use curriculum that promoted perfection, aka culture, for all students. his ideas failed in english schools
• Oscar Wilde agreed with Arnold that everyone could be cultured, Wilde loved poetry. "The poets were the national conscience and the voice of greatness. They, and they alone, could move anyone to act for any noble cause." The artist should have free reign in creation. 
• F.R Leaves, Essential university function, , to "foster a collaborative heuristico-creative interplay between the educated public and literature".  This could create a cultured elite but not a cultured public
• Leo Strauss, only a select few could listen and interpret from our great minds, who would lead democracies, the majority did not posess the talent to lead. Thought the mob/massess  should just accept the edicts and wisdom of those destined to rule. Popular culture was needed to entertain the masses.
• Alan Boom, strauss protege, the closing of the american mind, the natural elites in the us stopped listening to and interpreting the great minds  of the past, instead they accepted any agrument presented, afraid to offend anyone. The culture elite were willfully dumbing themselves down, via rock n roll and comics, this marke the end of western dominance of the world. 

The Fall of Culture and rise of Pop Culture;

• Why does pop culture become powerful-
• previously things like time, money, and law, prevented the masses from seeing theatre and museums, by 1950 these limitations disapeared, with film, tv and, radio. 
• Americanization of culture; with film and mass production and distribution, film stars could be all over the world at the same time, while people had to wait for the opera to visit. Traditional artist began to lose their status as tv or radio starts grew more powerful. 
• The critics of pop culture, like arnold were right, The main fields of education, liberal arts, that was meant to construc the cultured mind were reduced to instrumental purposes, to get a job, 
• Pop culture could be as cultured as any traditional art;

From Iconic Images to Pop Culture Images;

• Traditional
• Plato said physical image was subordinate to the mental. Physical was a corrupts substitute for the truth of the mental image. 
• Plato saw writing as weakening the mental powers of memory, the spoken word was truth, the written was a corrupt substitue, removing people from the ideal. 
• Religious images also were corrupting the true imgage of spirit
• logical positivism
• Challenged by Ludwig Wittgenstein
• mental images are just another image, but not superior to other images. Most important was how the images represent meaning. Meaning only comes from shared experiences.
• Just as plato challenged the written word in favor the spoken, the writers began to challenge the picture, video, in favor of the written.  The writers began to lose their status. 
• W.J.T. Mitchell;comparative method; text  and image could express a mental image, but text more clearly, To counteract this one must view each, text and image as valuable, but different. Mitchel tries to help one navigate the pitfals fo contemp society. Each form of image adds a new dimension of understanding, provididing a differnt perspective of reality.

Digital Image

• An image reduced to a numeric value
• Manovich, a digital image contains much more information than anyone could ever want
• required a large amount of space to store digital images
• Manovich, digital image real power is in compositioning; the melding or morphing of idfferent layers or images together in order to make them appear as if they were one single image. This cannot be found in any form of pop culture. 
• Compositing allows films to make their own worlds via computer generation. 
• Mark Hansen, digital imaging is more than a new technique it is a new "will to art", radically altering the human/tech relationship. 
• Friedrich Kittler, digital image is ushering in a new posthuman era, humans are not necessary. 
• The digitial image is a continual reminder that we live in a new period in which popular culture is playing a leading role in constructing reality and those people who understand the effects of popular culture in all dimensions of life will be better prepared to mee the challenges of the altered world that digital images are constructing one pixel at a time. 
• The trendsetters will be those who can capture the attention ofthe camera, even in a negative way. They will do the influencing, how people  think, talk, dress, and interact. 
• These stylistic struggles occur within popular culture and those people and groups who win will be the next generation of image makers, superstars, and power borkers. the new cultural elite. 

Cultural Studies;

• an interdisciplanary field
• looks at pop culture and culture the same
• creative genies can be found anywhere
• power has kept pop culture from being called genius
• Geographic, The power of the american culture is threatening other national cultures