The Constraints of Soundbytes and Art

You are sitting watching TV, and a commercial comes on. It is a montage of beautiful scenery, flowing rivers and smiling kids. No it’s not the next pharmaceutical wonder-drug, or some politicians campaign commercial, it is a message from the wonderful and kind oil industry. Following after BP almost all the major oil companies have been on a PR blitz recently to convince the American Public that they are environmental stewards. They tout increased ethanol production and funding for “alternative” energy as proof of there “reformed greenery”. To explain why exactly that oil companies are by no means environmental stewards in their practices today would take a whole different column, if not a book. Rather than address this one case, I feel the need to discuss the larger issue of the power of images and sound in the 21^st century.

The commercial has its roots in revolutionary Soviet Russian art and politics. Early Soviet films like Battleship Potemkin were devolved and used as Soviet propaganda. These films abandoned the traditional linear storytelling in favor of a collection of images that meant to invoke emotion and shape thought. This is what our current 30 second advertising spot is based upon. The commercial is a collection of images and sounds that are meant to intentionally invoke specific emotions and often particular primal instincts in order to shape thought. Truth in advertising is always thrown under a bus; these ads are made to sell you on a particular product or ideology. For the past half century, in ever increasing ways these ads, and the thousand other product placements, internet banners, logos and print ads have impacted and formed our common consciousness without any real critical thinking about them.

This is why we have a sort of false consciousness is the one in which American’s know how much a chicken bowl at KFC costs, but not the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. We know that we are in Iraq because of WMD’s, Bin Laden and 9/11. We live in a sound byte culture in which the fantastic amount of information we receive and process is neatly packaged for us. This sound byte, stereotype packaging comes with a price, the loss of reality. There are journalists that go in depth into the actual story, opting for objective investigation and journalism instead of corporate and pentagon produced PR videos; but this information compromises only a small minority of the information individuals disseminate. Among Americans, even those who actually try and seek out the pertinent, valuable news, it is undoubtedly much easier to flick on FOX or check the ticker on CNN. While some organizations are obviously worse than others, (FOX), our social construction is what is developing this false consciousness. This falsity is so pervasive in our society that everything, every network, company and person is tainted by it.

In the end, it’s all about the Benjamin’s baby. Ultimately, corporate bottom lines are the reason why important yet complex stories are abandoned for the next missing white woman. This consciousness is supported by power elite the fact that we like to be entertained much more than we like to be informed. Even though fundamentally and ideologically opposite, the Beatles and modern day car companies have become married in a sick form of capitalist exploitation. Beautiful art, both in the music and images are changed into the means in which something can be effectively marketed. Art is not a machine; you do cannot destroy art but it can certainly pervert it.

Images, sounds, ads and montages affect us psychologically, but it doesn’t always have to be bad. Art is the potential in humans that binds with our creativity which has the power to help in the struggle for progress. A great example of this is the new film, “Across the Universe”, in theatres now. It is the music of the Beatles, set to a narrative of the turbulent 60’s weaving music, politics, love, art and sexuality all into a moving two hour film. I never really grew up with the Beatles, but to hear that music and see where it came from was powerful beyond words. We the people have the ability to create the anti-ad, to see something like the Beatles not as a revolution in car-making but in the revolutionary context of their time. So the next time you see something on TV, critically analyze it, and, if it doesn’t add up then tune out, turn off and drop it like it’s hot(garbage that is).