Billy Bragg: Ideology

Billy Bragg wrote 'Ideology' 25 years ago, but (sadly) it's as fresh as ever. It was the 4th track on Talking With the Taxman About Poetry.

Stop copying me

Earlier this week, Flavorwire compiled examples of music videos that are influenced by/steal from other sources; Beyoncé-related examples are below. This discussion—where to draw the line between inspiration and theft—spans all forms of art and isn't an argument than can be easily settled. As a consumer of culture, I'm not as interested in the legal squabbles and 'gotcha' comparisons as I am in tracing influences and being led to material I might not have found otherwise.

I appreciate the case fair use advocates make (liberal copyright rules encourages a more vibrant culture), but I also sympathize with lesser-known artists who have their style/moves/riffs/words lifted by mega pop stars. The artists who give credit to their influences (and compensates them when appropriate) are due more respect in my book than those who continue to profess their originality despite evidence to the contrary. Below are a few clips that explore the topic further.

Everything is a Remix is a four-part series; three sections are finished and the final episode is due soon. Donations to the production are accepted here.


Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Everything is a Remix parts 2 & 3.


Can I get an 'Amen'? Following the path(s) of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969, Nate Harrison contemplates what impact sampling is having on culture and commerce. This video was produced in 2004.




A lot of wisdom has been dropped from dudes sitting on basketball rims. You can hear some more at the beginning of this compilation of dance moves. "Aint nobody here the best b-boy... People were probably doing this shit thousands of years ago... All we're doing is manifesting shit at a different time."




Beyoncé Billboard Awards performance (2011) and Lorella Cuccarini performance (2010)



Single ladies, I believe you know Bob Fossee...





More than any other form of expression, dance seems to be the most difficult one over which to exert some sort of ownership. Beyoncé has acknowledged the influences on in her Countdown video, but that doesn't seem to satisfy everyone.





* * *
Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -Paul Gauguin

Good artists borrow. Great artists steal. -Pablo Picasso

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic. -Pablo Picasso

I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture. -Andy Goldsworthy

Bad Banks on LeShow

On the October 2, 2011 episode of LeShow, Harry Shearer's interviews Yves Smith, a financial expert w/ experience at companies such as McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs, and Sumitomo Bank. If you appreciate the smart and straightforward perspective Elizabeth Warren brings to credit- and debt-related issues, you must listen to Smith's insights into the U.S. and European banking crisis. She's the author of ECONned and the blog Naked Capitalism. Her earlier conversation with Shearer about U.S. housing foreclosures ("the new F-bomb") is also worth checking out.

* * *

LeShow has earned a regular spot in my podcast rotation. The weekly radio program occasionally centers on an expert like Smith or perhaps a jazz musician; more often, however, it consist of Shearer reading choice excerpts from the week's news. He's a satirist (not nearly as broad as you'll find on the Comedy Central "news" programs), and has a knack for highlighting details or entire stories that have been given short shrift in the popular press. Two of his regular features are called "The Buried Lead" and "News from Outside the Bubble." KCRW describes the show as a "romp through the worlds of media, politics, sports and show business, leavened with an eclectic mix of mysterious music." LeShow is broadcast on many NPR stations and available on the internet and via podcast.

In addition to LeShow and his roles on The Simpsons, Shearer produced The Big Uneasy, a documentary film about levy system in New Orleans (his adopted home) during hurricane Katrina.

3 artists

There's plenty that distinguishes Vik Muniz, JR, and Ai Weiwei from one another, but what connects them in my mind is their ability to make large-scale, politically interesting art that retains a highly personal quality. Each has an activist streak and a desire to effect change outside galleries and museums.

Waste Land is a documentary about Vik Muniz's collaboration with several people who scavenge recyclable material in Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest trash dump located outside Rio de Janeiro.



Muniz and his crew work with the recyclers/models to create large mosaics which are photographed and auctioned off, the proceeds benefiting each model or an organization connected to that model. The story of how folks earn a living at Jardim Gramacho is, on its own, worthy of your attention, but add to that the impact of Muniz's intervention in the their lives and the film becomes extraordinary.


TED Prize winner, JR explains how his 'sidewalk galleries' evolved into a wish to change the world in the clip blow. In 2009 he told Beaux Arts Magazine, "I want to try to create images of hot spots such as the Middle East or Brazil that offer different points of view from the ones we see in the worldwide media which are often caricatures." The result of JR's TED wish is the Inside Out Project. 




Ai Weiwei is an artist and activist from China whose output includes sculpture, installations, photography, architecture, not to mention his prodigious blogging and tweeting. Frontline's short documentary, Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?, provides an excellent overview of his art and activism, particularly how he organized an investigation into poorly constructed school buildings following the Sichuan earthquake. (Why PBS doesn't enable users to embed clips baffles and frustrates me.)

A week ago, Weiwei was detained by authorities in Beijing as he was attempting to board a flight to Hong Kong; as of today, his whereabouts are unknown. Before his arrest, Weiwei described his work and the challenges he faces as an artist in China in this clip.

The People Speak

Historian and activist Howard Zinn died a year ago today, 1/27/10.

The People Speak is a film inspired by his essential books A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States.

Noam Chomsky said, "Howard Zinn's People's History molded the perceptions and conscience of a generation by bringing from the recesses of history those unknown and remarkable people who were often its most influential agents. In this new film we can hear their voices, and the messages they offer to us about the path to a better future, a most rewarding experience."

The film includes appearances by: Matt Damon, Marissa Tomei, Viggo Mortensen, Josh Brolin, Danny Glover, David Strathairn, Benjamin Bratt, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, Rosario Dawson, Sean Penn, Sandra Oh, Kerry Washington and others. Music contributors include Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and John Legend.



Here's the beginning of the Bill Moyers interview with Zinn just before the film premiered on the History Channel in 2009. The complete conversation is available here.

I believe that cyborgs are the future...

...teach them well and let them lead the way. OK, perhaps we're not ready to sing inspirational songs about cyborgs yet, but they do occupy a special place in our imagination.

Let's define a few terms: robots are mechanism that can move automatically; androids are robots that have a humanoid form; and cyborgs, or cybernetic organisms, are beings that have biological and artificial parts.

In science fiction, cyborgs seem determined to subjugate humanity, make us more machine-like, or destroy us outright (see: Darth Vader, the Terminator, the Borg, and the most recent Cylons).

While menacing, I don't believe the fear we have of these characters springs from concerns about technology. Sci-fi cyborgs are stand-ins for humans who slavishly embrace a belief system or a cause, especially one that requires them to keep compassionate impulses in check. In other words, it's the absence of something distinctly human, not the addition of technology, that makes them villains.

Technology does play an interesting role in these stories, though. Mechanical enhancements give cyborgs physical and mental prowess that can't easily be matched by (puny) humans. Vipers, phasers, and blasters are useful (and cool), but the successful human heroes also need the right psychological (or spiritual) tools to be successful. Sure enough, many of popular cyborg stories conclude not with the physical defeat of cyborg enemies but a cyborg breaking from an oppressive system and sometimes sacrificing themselves for humans.

In reality, tech-enhanced people fill an aspirational space instead of an anxiety-filled one. Their augmentations address disabilities and compliment their humanity rather than threaten it. This is why I suspect we will take to (or physically take in) cybornetic technology as it becomes more advanced and accessible.

I wonder how long it will be before technology reaches a point in which robotic body parts become an attractive alternative to what we're born with. I'm not talking about replacements for injured or missing pieces. For better or worse, I can imagine a time when we begin to trade in healthy features for 'enhanced' versions. What do you think? Does this sound believable or too creepy to come true?

Related video:

From TED: Athlete, actor and activist Aimee Mullins talks about her prosthetic legs--she's got a dozen amazing pairs--and the super-powers they grant her: speed, beauty, an extra 6 inches of height... Quite simply, she redefines what the body can be.


From EYBORG: Take a one eyed film maker, an unemployed engineer, and a vision for something that’s never been done before and you have yourself the EyeBorg Project. Rob Spence and Kosta Grammatis are trying to make history by embedding a video camera and a transmitter in a prosthetic eye. That eye is going in Robs eye socket, and will record the world from a perspective that’s never been seen before.

A heart for the tin man

Generals and industrialists aren't the only ones thinking about the future of robots. More sensitive souls are considering the emotional impact these machines will have on us. For example, the Bristol Robotic Institute has developed the Heart Robot. This puppet-like bot mimics breathing and has a mechanism that feels like a beating heart.


"Does it make our world a much more emotionally sophisticated place when we're actually able to relate to our artifacts the way we relate to one another? Or does it make us value emotional and social relationships less because there are these artifacts that do it just as well and we can switch them off?" 
BRI's mission is to understand the science, engineering and social role of robotics and embedded intelligence. Their multidisciplinary approach aims to create autonomous devices capable of working independently, with each other, or with us in our human society.

Looking for a few good robots

I speculated about what a case for autonomous robots would look like in an earlier post, noting that having robots take the place of humans in life-threatening situations would be particularly persuasive. Since then I came across an account of the "Robot Rodeo" held at Fort Hood last year. Here's an excerpt.

Fresh off a tour in Iraq, Gen. Lynch challenged the attendees to show him some real robots. He told the stunned crowd there were no robots in Iraq--just things with remote control. He also said that he had lost 155 soldiers under his command in Iraq--122 soldiers--would not have died if the right robots had been there to help keep them out of harm's way. "I'm talking about a system that has a certain degree of autonomy," he said. [emphasis added]

Francis X. Govers III's article "U.S. Army Holds 'Robot Rodeo' at Fort Hood" appeared in the the January/February 2010 issue of Robot Magazine.

* * *Autonomous robots with the ability to drive vehicles or detect IEDs would be great assets in a war zone, but if autonomy is extended to armed machines, then we need to seriously consider everyone in which those machines will come in contact and the prospect of a deadly malfunction (example).

RoboResponsibility

Two excerpts from from Annalee Newitz's column for Metro Active (10/27/07).

"In South Africa, a widely used anti-aircraft cannon called the Oerlikon GDF-005 suffered from what many observers believe was a computer malfunction that killed nine soldiers and maimed 15 in a training exercise. Its computer-controlled sighting mechanism went haywire, and the gun automatically turned its barrel to face the trainees next to it, spraying bullets from magazines that it automatically reloaded until it was out of ammunition. Many compared the incident to science fiction fare like RoboCop or Terminator, where military bots turn on their masters."

"The tragedy in South Africa could have been avoided if the engineers who designed that cannon had simply refused to computerize its sight. With a big gun, computer error can be far worse than human error. Any decent engineer would have known that failure in computer systems is inevitable and come to the conclusion that weapons should not be programmed to function autonomously."

This story brings a few thoughts to mind.

1. Some have advocated for a Hippocratic Oath for scientists. Determining where the lines should be drawn would be a challenge, but we manage equally difficult tasks in others fields; why not the sciences?

2. The creation of autonomous machines with the ability to kill will be justified by the idea that they will save ___ lives [fill in your nation of choice]. The decision to send humans or robots into harm's way is no real decision at all (who wouldn't chose robots?), but this question obscures the more fundamental question: is this violence justified in the first place? When a government (or any group) can kill without risking lives from their side, how much more likely are they to turn to violence?

3. Our current organizational/legal structures insulate individuals at the top and bottom from blame during war. Soldiers simply follow orders and leaders claim not to be responsible for the actions of "bad apples". (It can take years to peel back the layers of responsibility when bad apples are charged with wrong doing.) Adding another layer--computer error--confuses the picture further. As more of these machines are deployed, clarity on who is responsible for what they do becomes increasingly important. If they are put in the field by the U.S. government, then we (U.S. readers) share responsibility for what these machines do.