Many DU discussions on various subjects involve the perceptions, awareness and responsiveness (or not) of the American public; as well as the immense power that the consolidated media has over them.
This piece from Utne reader proposes:
--that we are "surrealists without knowing it"
--"surrealism asserted that...what was important was tapping the power of everyone's unconscious and sparking a revolution both psychic and political"
--that the bombardment of imagery and experiences that dominate American life either overwhelm or empower us, depending on our attitude.
"If advertising and music videos have trained us to appreciate a surreal flow of discontinuities, then we ought to be able to enjoy them, creatively and intentionally, in our own lives"
How much do quick cut media techniques and sound bite political posturing affect the issues that DU addresses?
Do most people feel "overwhelmed" or "empowered"?
Does a constant "flow of discontinuities" create a distracted and disconnected public?
Anyone for a bit of "surrealist elation"?
http://www.utne.com/pub/2005_129/promo/11633-1.htmlThe Surreal Life
Surrealism is not only alive and well, it could be the antidote to our modern angst
—By Jon Spayde, Utne magazine
May / June 2005 Issue
(liberally or surrealistically edited by OM <snips>)
In the early 1920s, poet Andre Breton and a handful of like-minded poets and artists in Paris ... became convinced that the innovative, creative power that had previously been thought of as the province of artists alone lay latent in all human minds...surrealism asserted that form mattered little; what was important was tapping the power of everyone's unconscious and sparking a revolution both psychic and political.
...The one quality that nearly all surrealist art shared was reveling in odd juxtapositions -- visual and verbal non sequiturs that created a sense that ordinary life and dream are two sides of one thin coin. Breton became convinced that daily life itself could be experienced surrealistically.
...we mostly experience surrealism in its descendant, postmodernism, a steady flow of incongruous, often disconnected images from many times and places. We flip from the History Channel to CNN to ads that Dali might have created; the Internet takes us on an even wilder ride around the world and from psyche to psyche. Our daily lives are full of encounters with people from different cultures and other surprises of a thousand kinds. Although sophisticated artists can make postmodernism meaningful, for many of us it's a psychic overload from which we seek relief in everything from simplicity circles to suburban "safety."
What if we went the other way and reclaimed our own experience in a surrealist spirit? If advertising and music videos have trained us to appreciate a surreal flow of discontinuities, then we ought to be able to enjoy them, creatively and intentionally, in our own lives: the Arabic we hear at the corner store, the anime comics in the bookstore rack, the bizarre profusion of the supermarket, mixed with our dreams and fantasies. A transition from being overwhelmed "consumers of images" to empowered artists of the everyday could begin with a shift of attitude from postmodern prostration to surrealist elation.