Do Media Moguls control the World?

Media moguls and corporations control the minds and souls of us common people to a certain extent. The media chooses what information is reported on the news and the way in which this information is presented.

For example, the fact that the Arctic ice cap is shrinking due to global warming and the waters of Northern Canada may be open during the summer months leaving a direct waterway from Europe to Asia could be portrayed in several ways:

1. This new waterway would stimulate the economies and result in jobs in the small towns of Canada's Arctic.

2. Polar bears and other endangered Arctic wild life are having difficulty finding hunting grounds because the ice is essential to their fragile ecosystem.

These two examples show how the same news can be portrayed in two very different ways, leading the viewer to believe the side that is being reported in the media. People are being manipulated into believing what the media chooses to report. People are manipulated by the omission of information. Until we question all sides of a story and do the research for ourselves, we will continue to be manipulated by the media.

Each television station, newspaper, or book could be reporting the same issue/story and each one would have a completely different message conveyed to the audience. It is all in the editing, the information that is chosen to be conveyed controls the final message.

In essence the media only controls us to the extent that we let them.

External Design: Fire Escapes

I've always thought that fire escapes are an interesting form of design. Although these staircases work as a part of the building design, they are often works of art themselves. This ability to take a building safety requirement and turn it into its own work of art is design at its best.

Fire escapes are often used on older-residential building such as apartments. In a well maintained structure, the fire escape can contribute to the overall feeling of the building. It can add character or help create a certain ambiance.

The fire escape often creates a feeling of uniqueness and creativity to the mood of the building.

The stairs on the left are a good example of utility as art. These stairs create an extremely tactile, rough and organic mood through the use of curves, the roughness of the metal used in its construction, and the way each individual stair's joint is attached to the central pole.

The stairs above create an entirely different feeling than the winding stairs. The yellow stairs appear to be more of a work of modern art. This feeling is achieved through its use of colour and its use of angles. There are no curves in this design which emphasizes the buildings, very contemporary look. In essence, the yellow fire escape ads a feeling of art or design to what would be a very blah kind of building.

Sidewalk Chalk

Just came across these images online and though that they were very interesting. Have you ever come across an image on the ground and been completely captivated? Sidewalk art is amazing.

The amount of work that goes into something that will only last a few days is astounding.

The really amazing aspect of this kind of sidewalk art is the way that the artist uses perspective to create an illusion of a third dimension. At certain angles the drawing almost look like it's an object in the real world. This form of trompe de l'oeil makes the viewer stop and try to figure out how this illusion was accomplished.

These drawings have also been used as a form of advertising. Coke, and Absolut Vodka have both used sidewalk art as a form of advertising to cause an interruption in the everyday lives of normal people.




For more really amazing images go to Anamorphic Sidewalk Painting.

Weekly Media Consumption

I divided up my media consumption for the week into 5 main categories:

1. Internet: 31.5 hrs/wk
Email: 3.25 hrs/wk
Homework: 13.25 hrs/wk
Blog: 3 hrs/wk
Surfing: 12 hrs/wk

2. Reading: 9.25 hrs/wk
Book: 2 hrs/wk
Homework: 1.75 hrs/wk
Magazine: 2.25 hrs/wk
Newspaper: 3.25 hrs/wk

3. Movies: 18.25 hrs/wk

4. Television: 6 hrs/wk

5. Radio: 17.5 hrs/wk

What's in Good Taste?

What is good taste? Why do we like the things that we do? How can we make an ad or design or painting appeal to everyone?

Perhaps one of the best examples of the studies of good and bad taste in terms of art are "The Most Wanted Paintings" by Komar & Melamid.

These artists conducted surveys of a thousand people each of various countries. The surveys were geared toward discovering a particular country's aesthetic preferences in terms of painting. Based on the polls, Komar and Melamid created two paintings for each country suveyed: 1. The Most Wanted Painting, and 2. The Least Wanted.

If you look at the most popular paintings as a group and the worst paintings as another group, there are vast differences from country to country. What one country considers horrible varies from what another country considers horrible; the same is true for "The Most Wanted Paintings."

United States' Most Wanted Painting


China's Most Wanted Painting


Holland's Most Wanted


To see all the paintings done by Komar & Melamid, click here.

Komar & Melamid even composed two songs using the same strategy as the paintings; "The Most Wanted Song" and "The Least Wanted Song."

The Most Wanted Paintings are not even that great. They are in fact quite odd. The American painting has a random figure of George Washington, people walking, and some Bambi-like deer frolicking. It doesn't really make sense. In fact, most people would probably say that "The Most Wanted Painting" is in bad taste.

Taste is subjective, you can't please everybody. What a designer or an artist can do is please a specific target market or person. Also, taste is subjective; people's likes and dislikes vary from person to person. It doesn't matter what you do, there will always be someone who dislikes your work.

Defining Art

What is art?

Some people would say art is any object created by a person. Others might say that a piece of art is an object found in gallery. Both definitions are problematic. Both definitions are acceptable, but both are highly problematic.

According to the first, anything created by a person could be considered a work of art. The person who designs car tires could be considered an artist according to this definition. Ads, graphic design, clothes, binders, shovels, etc, could all be considered high-art. Everyone and anyone could be considered an artist simply if they have ever created something.

The second definition refers to the location of the object in question. If the object is located in a gallery or a museum or a historic, therefore it must be art. So a statue in the Louvre in Paris, France would be considered high-art, even though the same statue in a men's club in downtown Toronto would not be considered anything remotely artistic.


The artist Marcel Duchamp and his readymades art objects pushed the definition of 'art' to an unknown degree when he introduced 'The Fountain' at the Society of Independent Artists in 1917. Perhaps his most famous work, Duchamp submitted a porcelain urinal and signed it under a pseudonym of "R. Mutt." A majority of the society's directors declared that this item was indecent and not art, and was refused from the show.






















"The Fountain" caused quite a bit of controversy, as it questions the very nature of art. By removing the object from its original context (i.e. the bathroom) and placing it in a gallery, Duchamp makes the viewer re-evaluate your own definition of art. Duchamp signed the work and placed it on a pedestal in a gallery thereby meeting all the criteria for the definition of a piece of art.

Context means everything in our definition of art; the environment surrounding the work can provide the viewer with cues as to what the maker/artist/creator wants the work/object to be classified as. Also, sometimes the idea behind the work/object is the artwork in itself.

The definition of art is subjective; it is only art if and only if the individual viewer permits the work to be so.






Photo from:
http://locus.cwrl.utexas.edu/jbrown/files/Marcel%20Duchamp.jpg