Greetings Economists, On Feb 22, 2008, at 9:34 AM, Sandwichman wrote:
Can't resist quoting Walter Benjamin: "Art's last line of resistance coincides with the commodity's most advanced line of attack."
Doyle; The problem with these comments is a lack of content about how art is made. Especially books. Why is there a crisis in publishing and newspapers? What is the pressure that is eroding their product markets? Sure these are commodities. Or commodities can encroach on new areas all the time, and old commodities die as well in a helter skelter mess. But a video game is re-used and how does one account for the re- use? Why are historical forms of art alike? One reproduces huge number of Harry Potter books, but art galleries still show 'one' painting. One sale, one huge price. Walter Benjamin is worse than useless about what mechanical reproduction does. His blather jargon scale makes it impossible to get the physics of information technology as a commodity. In other words he is not a suitable realist guide to what happens when people try to make realistic art. A focus on big malls, and the 'store' when laid next to Amazon dot com versus Toys r us stores is what I mean. Or the massive influence of WalMart purchasing power by the latest info technology. No one could look at art now and have a clue from Benjamin about what is going on. In that light what LP says about movies is equally not engaging in what information that is interactive does. thanks, Doyle Saylor
