Lecture: Print Culture and Distribution (OUAN401)

Honestly, I found it rather hard to absorb all the information in this lecture. Perhaps I was distracted by the fact that earlier that day I learned that America had elected as leader of the free world a giant, rotting peach that wants to sleep with its daughter.

Savvy political commentary from me

But that aside, here is what I pieced together of the lecture.

We were taught about how printed media went from being a luxury item for the elite to being available for the lower classes thanks to the invention of Gutenberg's printing press, the concept of having art exhibitions for all to enjoy popularised by painter John Martin and other things. This meant print media could be mass produced and in some cases, homogenised and dumbed down to the point where it loses all meaning.

What I enjoyed most was the internal debate that this lecture sparked in my head about the issue of how much distribution of print culture is too much. It's a good question. For instance, since the Mona Lisa has been parodied and put on tea towels a billion times, is can be debated that this has changed our perception of the original artwork, which it totes has. Since it's been made available for the general masses, it's lost it's artistic importance.

Ugh, you can't trust anything with the general masses. The Mona Lisa, legal fireworks, our future within Europe etc.

Scholars Frank and Queenie Leavis argued that culture should be in the hands of an educated minority, which might help to make art more important as it would be more rare, and getting into the industry would be more of a class thing for people to aspire to as art schools were once highly revered (not like now where they're all a bit crap).*

Having the means of distributing culture placed purely in the hands of the educated elite would also mean things like tacky knock offs could be avoided, but the biggest problem with this for me is that printed culture is important for moving society forward and it can start revolutions, make people aware of important global issues and unite people of all classes. I've mentioned this in previous COP blogs. Printed media covers a massive spectrum and if it's in the hands of the elite and the elite only then it can quickly become propaganda, with the elites in power using it to help them cling on to power. I think I'd happily have a million pictures of Mona Lisas smoking bongs if it also meant that everybody was free to express themselves however they pleased. For every twenty Mona Lisa bong paintings, you get one piece of revolutionary underdog art like this:

A painting celebrating the Young Turks' revolution which overthrew the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Empire. There is a caption which reads "liberty, equality, fraternity".

Matthew Arnold, a cultural critic in the 1800s, had the opposing view to the Leavis' and said that he sought to "minister the diseased spirit of our time" that was the class divide when it came to art. I also thought during this lecture, "where can the distribution of print media go from here?" It has already evolved to the point where anybody can create art or photographs or written think-pieces and share them with the whole world instantly. While there are plenty of places where print culture is still monitored by the elite, we are living in an age of (mostly) artistic freedom. Does this mean that the print culture market will become over-saturated at some point now that everyone has this freedom?

Does this in turn mean that there will be so much stuff out there that being innovative and original will be virtually impossible? Will the trends move so fast that we won't be able to keep up? Now that EVERYBODY can make powerful political statements through print media, does that mean they cease to be powerful?

Syndrome from "The Incredbles" said it best:

Used without permission, but no one will read this anyway.

*only joking