400 words paper on media art

AHS 020 / MCS 023 Welcome

Check In

• Take a moment to check in with yourself • If you had to describe yourself as a cloud right now, what type of

cloud would you be?

Community Practices

Stay Engaged Be respectful of one another, educating one another, “no

devil’s advocate” Call people in, not out Be open-minded

Don’t judge, provide constructive criticism, respect

other people’s interpretations

Active listening—”I want to make sure I’m understanding

you correctly”

Flexibility for everyone’s living situation

Give everyone the room to speak: make space, hold

space, and take space

No “-isms”--we explicitly ban racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.-- sometimes these are subtle and we may need to educate one another

Be present, cameras on if possible, use chats, reactions,

keep other tabs closed Never hesitate to ask for help

Visual Thinking Strategies

John Baldessari, Concerning Diachronic/Syn chronic Time: Above, On, Under (with Mermaid) (1976)

Revised Syllabus

Thanks to everyone who filled out the mid-course check-in. Based on your feedback, I revised the syllabus. 3 Key points: • Assignment 2 (Research Projects) is now Friday, 7/17 • Instead of Assignment 3 (group project); there will be a short take home-

final with the option of an in-class presentation on Wednesday, 7/22 • You may collaborate with others on the in-class presentation if you like

• It is not required, but if you would like, you may resubmit a thoroughly revised (i.e. it must be at least 50% new material) Assignment 1. If you plan to resubmit, please notify me and your TA by email • As a reminder, notes on Assignment 1 and evaluation forms are posted to

your submission on iLearn

Using the UCR Library for Research

https://ucrsupport.service-now.com/ucr_portal/?id=kb_article&sys_id=8a264d791b5f0c149c0b844fdd4bcb34#6

Montage

Sergei Eisenstein, October, 1928

• (excerpt)

Sergei Eisenstein, Strike, 1925

What’s so bad about capitalism?

Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times, 1936 (excerpt)

Let’s take a trip back to 19th century London, where Marx lived in exile and eventually wrote his most famous works…

Jacob’s Island, a so-called ”rookery” in London

“In nineteenth century London, you could see the difference between rich people and poor people. Rich people didn’t just live longer, eat better, and wear nicer clothes. They were usually taller, with straighter backs and limbs. Many poor children suffered from rickets, a disease caused by bad nutrition and lack of sunlight. The disease caused their growth to slow and their bones to curve. A modern-day fifth grader might stand eye to eye with a working adult froma poor London neighborhood of the 1820s.”

Sarah Albee, Poop Happened! p 101

Friedrich Engels wrote that so many people were maimed in the mills in Manchester that “it was like living in the midst of an army just returned from a campaign.”

Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1864

“…a royal commission established by the Whig government recommended in 1833 that children aged 11-18 should work a maximum of twelve hours a day; children aged 9-11 were allowed to work eight-hour days; and children under 9 were no longer permitted to work at all, though previously children as young as 3 had been put to work.”

But this only applied to textile mills. All other industries were still free to use child labor and did.

The History of England

Lewis Hine, Yazoo City Yarn Mills, Mississippi 1911

“Current global estimates… indicate that 168 million children aged 5 to 17 are engaged in child labour.” https://www.unicef.org/csr/child-labour-portal_more.html

From the beginning, capitalism and racism have been closely linked

“Antiracist policies cannot eliminate class racism without anti-capitalist policies. … Marx recognized the birth of the conjoined twins.”

Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist, 159

Does capitalism have to lead to poor working conditions?

Marx, “First Economic and Philosophical Manuscript” • For Marx, capitalism means that, more and more, the world is split

“property owners” and “propertyless workers.” (p 70) • Why? Because “The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he

produces and the more his production increases in power and extent.” (p 70)

Instagram post by National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) May 21, 2020

Marx, “First Economic and Philosophical Manuscript” • Capitalism turns the worker into a commodity, and the more they

work--“the more goods he creates”--the less valuable this commodity becomes. • “The devaluation of the human world increases in direct relation with

the increase in value of the world of things.” (71)

Marx, “First Economic and Philosophical Manuscript” • But how can creating goods decrease the value of the worker… and of

human life? • Because “the worker is related to the product of his labor as to an

alien object.” (p71) • alien here means it doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to someone else

• The worker doesn’t own what the worker makes, so it is separate from them and this robs them of their life. • “The worker puts his life into the object, and his life then belongs no

longer to himself but to the object.” (p 71)

Worker

life

Object

Worker

Object

Object

“The greater his activity, therefore, the less he possesses.”

“…the relation of the worker to the product of labor [is] as an alien object that dominates him” (p 74)

Object

“A direct consequence of the alienation of man from the product of his labor, from his life activity and from his species-life is that man is alienated from other men.” 77

Object

“The statement that each man is alienated from species-life means that each man is alienated from others, and that each of the others is likewise alienated from human life.” 77

“Communism if the positive abolition of private property of human self-alienation, and thus the real appropriation of human nature…

“...it is therefore the return of man himself as a social, i.e. really human, being… .” 89

Human Human Human Human

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto

“In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer. “In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.”

Dziga Vertov Group, British Sounds, 1970

Capitalism and Fascism are closely related

“Fascism is a historic phase which capitalism has entered into, and in this sense it is both new and at the same time old. In Fascist countries capitalism only survives as Fascism, and Fascism can only be resisted as capitalism, as the most naked, brazen, oppressive, and deceitful form of capitalism.

“How does someone propose to speak the truth about Fascism, to which he is opposed, if he does not propose to speak out against capitalism, which produces it? What are the practical consequences of his truth supposed to be?”

Berthold Brecht, “Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth,” 1934

Fascism, n. (Merriam-Webster)

• a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

Illustration of fasci or fasces

Neofascism

• What distinguishes neo-fascism in the 21st century from 20th century fascism? • Fascists were interested in the ascendency of very particular ethno-

states (e.g. Germany over France) • Neo-fascists are all too eager to make common cause with “enemies

of the state”—what Jo Becker calls “[the] fundamental irony of this political moment: the globalization of nationalism.”