#who have perspective of what it means for that specific branch of the entertainment industry

[theliterarywolf]

It's so much fun that after all the 'hey, make sure to give SAG-AFTRA the same level of support you guys gave WGA during their strikes' that SAG-AFTRA ended up leaping on the first chance to suckle on that misshapen AI teat.

A Voice Actor's Union would be so fucking nice right now...

[crstapor]

Why I am so Cynical

“I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”  - Zarathustra

Part 3

Let me stop shouting - sometimes I get carried away. Because it needs be clearly stated that my perspective on the matter at hand is not based solely on 'personal' experience (of course one can never deny the importance such datum possess!) but also 'phenomenological' experience, which is, clearly, a different animal altogether. That this menagerie has informed my thought will surprise no-one who's ever tried it; thinking, I mean. How else, if one is being as honest as possible, can one arrive at any conclusions whatsoever? While the first part of this essay waxed rather subjectively poetic, allow me to offer this third as a sort of empirical respite. Facts, good reader, let me proffer facts to further found my cynicism most severe.

But let me first define the scope these facts will express. The working title for this missive to minds who want to think was 'A Polemic against American Modernity'. Allowing that my interests, here, lie not north to Canada or south of Texas, the parameters of this diatribe should be well understood by all with even meager cartographic skill.  

Superficial perhaps I've structured these facts into three distinct phenomena; the surface, the self, and the symbol. I do so not to make any sweeping ontologic distinctions or assertions, rather, to help me think through them. System-building is not my purpose here - system-analysis is. The facets of modern America culture were well in place before I came along, and, unless I'm completely mistaken, I've done little to add to or enhance any of them. Apart from the clear truth of my having lived with and through them the vast majority of my mortal years. This 'truth', my citizenship and biography, allow me credence to present what follows as 'fact'; though of course it's still just one man's opinion!

Knowledge!

The Surface

Politics. Democracy. American Exceptionalism. Yeah right. So, help me out here, we have a great democracy because we vote for other people to get to vote on who actually becomes leader? Unless of course nine robes get that special privilege - based off of their admitted political preferences naturally! - like back in 2000. How the legislature is just a club for the privileged, connected, and the rich (which is almost redundant). How once 'money' became speech only those with 'money' had speech. The Founders are grave-rolling and Mussolini's having a laugh - fascism much? Let's remember Benito's definition of the term; which is when State and corporate interests converge (more or less). And we find that just about everywhere we look up in DC these days. Apparently we have the 'political will' to help banks, big oil, agribusiness, gun manufacturers, and all the other consolidated purveyors of terror, hate or control (sure, tobacco had to be sacrificed - occasionally you must throw the peasants a bone to keep the lie alive) but can't find the time to help out 'we the people': see continuing cuts to social programs; see the limp-dick governmental response to the housing/mortgage crisis of 2008 - ?; see the student loan pyramid scheme; see a 'minimum' wage that consistently fails to keep up with inflation; see a 'healthcare' plan that mandates private citizens purchase a product from non-governmental, for-profit companies - and taxes them if they don't; see how prohibition (here considered against natural, earth-born narcotics) continues to fuel a for-profit prison system and further erodes race relations; see how the gravest existential threat to the species (climate change, for realz) is perpetually laughed off and ignored; see how we lecture others on human rights while keeping Gitmo open and denying homosexuals equal protection under the law; see how NASA's (quite possibly, from a historical perspective, the greatest achievement of our modern society) budget keeps getting gutted while their priorities are schizophrenically re-ordered with each administration; see how children keep slaughtering children with weapons of war and no one can even attempt to do anything about it; see how voter ID laws are passed like Jim Crow; see how the innate sovereignty of the nation has been torn asunder now that private corporations can be 'to big to fail'; see an ever increasingly militarized police force; see the constitutional absurdity of 'free speech zones'; see democratic campaigns where one guy runs but once elected that guy's nowhere to be found and in his place is a carbon copy of the last guy who held the office ... See how our 'political parties' are two sides of the same coin ... But let's stop here and consider that last point in greater depth, as it is so vital to any understanding of 'democracy' in America ... Republicans, Democrats; Jefferson has been famously remembered, quoted, as saying once our (more properly his) democracy devolved into a two party system it would be a democracy no more. And I've certainly been a witness to that in my life. Sure, America isn't a dictatorship, but it sure as hell isn't the country Jefferson helped forge. And the main reason for that, to my eyes, seems to be the consolidation of power in the hands of politicians with more in common with each other than their constituents. R or D you can bet they're there for Wall Street or the military-information-industrial complex. Anyone else? Good luck with that citizen ... And while they're both complicit in gutting the middle class, let's take a moment to reflect, ethically, on that matter ... You can't blame the snake for its venom, but you can sure as hell blame the snake-oil salesman for shilling his bullshit wares. In case that metaphor wasn't clear enough allow me to decode it for you:

R = snake. D = snake-oil salesman.

Switching gears - though not by much! - let's shift to the state of modern American entertainment. To the uninitiated possibly a trite transition, any who've watched politics lately will surely see the connection. And just as our politics smell rotten, the main complaint with what passes as entertainment these days is how bad it tastes. Yes, it's a question of taste, as it seems most Americans have none. From 'reality TV' (which is surely anything but - though let's not forget Barnum's maxim!), to a pop-music ecosystem that's cannibalized itself to the point of parody, a movie industry that can seemingly fill ten months of releases with one script, the apotheosis of sport, the devolution of literature into a hobby for diarists, the way the performing arts are continually hoarded into smaller and smaller urban green zones, well, it's just hard to swallow most of that without gagging. Or throwing up. Yet a more concerted analysis along these lines is not called for here - we have much too much ground yet to cover.

Speaking of ground and covering it why not mention war? That old playground of glory now some video game where you might win many things; though honor's not among them. The full transition here is yet to occur, but we're definitely in the middle of it. Drones, air strikes, GPS targeting and bombs dropped from orbit (sure, not yet - wait for it!). The complete impersonalization of the other; that total objectification of the enemy (you better believe the pornographers have drone-envy). Let's not equivocate; it's one thing to look someone in the eye and take their life - quite another to push a button sixteen time-zones away and watch an image of indiscriminate carnage. How long will it be before we don't even let a homo sapien sapien push that button? How long before the machines are killing us on their own .?. Nothing to be cynical about here!

And if killing our 'enemies' has/is becoming so much more impersonal healing our 'own' has a fortiori. I'm not even going to start bandying about statistics but it's well known that of the 'first-world', 'post-industrialized' countries we're the only one that still considers healthcare a cash-grab instead of a human-right. And to what wonderful affect! Go ahead and try to ignore all the horror stories of your fellow Americans who lost it all because they couldn't pay their medical bills, or because they did. Pay no attention to record profit margins at insurance companies while the poor forgo all but emergency treatment and the wealth of the middle class is bled out and transferred to HMO executives. Sure, Uncle Tom tried to change all that - by passing a Republican plan even though the Ds had two branches of the federal government! - but when I tried to sign up for 'Obamacare' I still couldn't afford it even though I had $200 in the bank, no assets, and had been unemployed for over two years. If I lived in any other country where English is the primary language I'd be covered without paying a dime. My solution? To use the actual Republican plan - don't get sick!

But that should be easy since we all know of the three pillars of good health (diet, exercise, genetics) eating right is the easiest of all ... Hell. No, sorry, I was about to go all sarcastic and make it seem America knows nothing about sugar overload, HFCS, preservatives, the increasingly and horrifying inability of urbanites to access fresh foods (specifically the poor ones!), pesticides, pink slime, corn or corn or more corn or when will there ever be enough corn already, price gouging on foods that were produced the way they've been produced for centuries (read: organic, grass-fed, free-range), trans-fats, GMO proliferation in our breadbasket without an honest debate on the merits or looking at the science past what some corporation's panel has assured us is true, sodas, the food-gap, throwing away enough food daily to feed the world's hungry cuz it wouldn't make a dime, slaughterhouses like Auschwitz or Dachau ... That Quite Barbarism ... But that would be foolish - America knows all about that ... Why shouldn't it? America invented most of it …

And we invented the largest consumer-driven transportation system the world has ever seen to move all that food around. Sure, China will catch up with us eventually (if not already), but for the better part of three generations the US led the world in road-building and car-buying. Quite apart from the environmental effects this produced there was a profound psychological positive feed-back loop involved as well: one justifying the pre-dominate narrative of our consumer culture. Choice is sacred; you are special and unique and can reflect that through choice; so choose this product or this other one and express your uniqueness through possessing any one of these infinitely similar products; the choice is yours. Perhaps nowhere else in the market was this ‘story’ sold as diligently and aggressively than in the automobile industry. While it is true the US is, spatially speaking, a very large country, it is not true that every adult American needed or needs their own set of wheels to connect it. There are other options, other technologies that could’ve been employed to bring the masses together with more energy efficiency and communal cohesion. I admit it’s no Copernican Revolution, but the thought that Americans are so stubbornly self-interested and quick to discriminate opposed many of their European or native counterparts can not be divorced from the fact we all love to be in the driver’s seat. That commodified ‘freedom’ we are told awaits us on an open road with our very own internal combustion engine humming along in front of our feet; a freedom trains, buses, or carpooling can never provide. Again, notwithstanding the ecological impact of all this, the psychological dimension is impossible to ignore: even if we all owned Tesla’s that were powered by clean fusion charging stations it would still be me, me, me … which is quite naturally a completely uncynical disposition from which to hold a society together …

American’s fascination with their own value and freedom has of course been a dominate theme in the grand narrative of the country for some time; and while cars and roads were the major technological expression of that for much of the twentieth century, we have turned the corner here, in this regard, finding ourselves lost amid tiny little shiny screens that put the whole world inches from our eyes. With the advent of mobile computing the freedom so many seek isn’t conceived any longer by MPG rather MPBS. The new speed of information, and the promise of perpetual access, have enchanted the newer generations in much the same way vehicles did their antecedents. The technology is different while the story remains the same. It is still a self-centered freedom underlying the need, desire, to own the newest, quickest, coolest gadget. A freedom of information surely, yet one closely connected with the freedom cars brought their older relatives; it is as much economic as it is self-satisfying. The internet changed the game, naturally - and hail and well met etc. etc.! - but a claustrophobic observation remains … for a technology that has brought so many people together - and it has - it sure as hell does an awful good job sundering them as well … for you can’t find a public space anymore where a near-majority of your fellow citizens aren’t more interested in their precious little screens than those flesh and blood humans nearby. Perhaps this is just the necessary evolution of the social fabric - perhaps resistance is futile - though a social contract that has more to do with Facebook’s TOS opposed a Bill of Rights just (and forgive me for being so cynical) doesn’t seem like much of a society worth bothering with to this writer. Certainly not one worth the name.

Speaking of the modern technology we all now can’t live without, it seems to me a funny thing happened on the way to Google’s homepage … we now have access to all the information we can consume, on any topic, just a keystroke away, and look what we’re doing with it … I’m not just talking about social media or pornography, I mean the fundamental epistemological conundrum of an allegedly intelligent species that now has post-scarcity style access to information yet we’ve made of the web one colossal echo-chamber where the tribes huddle together in aggrieved resentment or ignorant bliss of the ‘others’ … look at it like this: in a day and age when the work of science (you know, that thing that made all this ((by which I mean ‘Modernity’ and all its toys)) possible) is more evenly, widely, and objectively disseminated than at any other time in history the public’s grasp and understanding of science and its work is at an all-time low. Basic data are disputed; empirical findings are called into question by anyone with a laptop, forget about a degree in the subject: what used to be considered non-issues, resolved subjects, are now argued over as if the Earth might actually be flat … all of which might just be good for a laugh if there weren’t actual existential threats to the species that only science can solve; yet we can’t even begin that discussion because some car salesman googled Glenn Beck and now we have legislatures that don’t think climate change is real; or they say the data doesn’t support an anthropogenic cause even though they never took a serious science course in their life; or that can’t be right because it doesn’t fit into our time-warp economy and a dollar today is obviously more important than our children’s future; or anyway shut-up idiot scientists just because you actually studied something other than law or business doesn’t mean you know any more than me because I have a high speed internet connection and I bookmarked the Drudge Report … how is it, philosophically speaking, tenable that the more information you have the stupider you become? I don’t know, but if you want a good example of the principle in action take a look at America today. Or just Google it …

Of course there is one thread that ties all these elements of ‘the surface’ together and that thread is consumerism as expressed by our current form of capitalism. The ascendancy of the dollar over all else (sorry God!). The desire to possess, acquire, consume. We are material creatures, we humans, and thus must consume to survive; fine: but do we have to do so in the manner we seem set on here and now? No, not at all, even suggesting that our’s is the only system, the only way to satiate the human hunger is absurd on its face as well as betraying an amnesiac’s conception of history. No, there are other paths, yet we have chosen this one, this ‘capitalism’ that mimics the terrors and rigors of the jungle at every turn. In the act of deifying money (more on that later) we have dehumanized ourselves. For the most part we are simple cogs in a vast machine that cares little or nothing for us; and so we care only for ourselves. The inherent egoism of the modern American psyche is spectacular to behold, certainly, in its primal vanity; at the same time giving the lie to any ethical system we still tenuously cling to as reminder of simpler days (sorry Christianity!). So we are, as a culture, no better than spoiled children grasping for another slice of pie. And while that’s certainly comical, it is also tragic, since such a system is not sustainable whatsoever (there is never enough pie). Neither history or science can provide any examples of such a system expanding into perpetuity (literature has given us a few but they are either satire or utopias ((same thing really))), and yet a sincere, concerted discussion on this issue has yet to percolate through the public sphere, or if so, only in the usual places and thus not given the sort of urgency it requires. But to have this conversation we all have to be ready to listen; it is not enough for the cynics and naysayers to keep shouting into the wild or the web: there has to be an audience, a receptive ear. Which brings us to our next section.

The Self

The problems elucidated in ‘The Surface’ are, to a great extent, symptoms of our sense of self, or, as is more often (if paradoxically) the case, our lack of one. While I am specifically referring to the modern American ‘self’, I’m going to be doing so with large brushstrokes; forming great swathes of colored splotches closer in kind to a rorscharch test than a pointilistic canvass. You may not see a reflection here so much as a sense of remembrance, or deja vu. That’s fine. I can’t be alone in thinking our lifespeeds have altered, and it’s just that alteration I want to discuss.

Lifespeed. Right. Let’s define that quickly so we can move on. By lifespeed I mean that facile quality of Being that tethers us to the ‘now’. Perceptually, our lives happen at a specific point in time, and I’ve conceived the word lifespeed to represent this point, as well as our conscious reaction to it. It’s just a word. Other than this meager definition it means nothing; has no other value. Right.

We were talking about choice earlier and there’s a clear connection between the act of choosing and the extant phenomena adjoining it. Just the relationship that lifespeed is meant to express. On its face, choice is neutral. Neither positive or negative, good or bad. The ‘designed’ choice of our consumer-driven society I find abhorrent, though not from some reactionary impulse, but a genuine longing for what it’s replaced. By making choices we define ourselves and I fear many of us are accepting a story that tells us we can only make this or that choice opposed to this that or the other. That we are told certain stories so many times we think we have no choice how they end; or wether to listen to them at all. In this way our lifespeeds have been damaged; like a bonsai pruned too severely.

Perhaps many are content defining themselves through ‘designed’ choice, or who ‘designed’ it anyway? Yes … there will always be sheep and lemmings in human form, and if that’s your angle you have my pity but nothing else. On the other hand, if you genuinely desire a leveling-up on the self-awareness front but have found this difficult to achieve thus far, you must realize two hard truths; the first that it is your business alone, none others - and the second, that it will be incredibly difficult to achieve because our society was not constructed to assist in this goal - quite the contrary! - it was designed to prevent it, at almost every turn. Here we return to the ‘designed’ component of American choice. Since the beginning the tiny tribes watching the throne have conspired to affect a marked class distinction in the land of the ‘free’. From the original agricultural workers of the new world, to the industrial workers who built a modern nation, to the current service sector workers slipping into poverty those with the firmest grip on the levers of power have continually strived to erect massive obstacles between those that labor for a living and those that live off that labor. Nor are these obstacles simply economic or aspirational in nature, no, due their pervasiveness through the generations they have percolated down into the most subterranean reaches of the mass conscious; into the very stories we use to define ourselves. Egads! a polite-hyper-modern-liberal-minded-triangulator might reply, don’t you know everyone has a TV! A refrigerator! Cheapest food ever! Why yes of course, there is an exception to every rule. While, for about thirty years in the middle of the last century, it seemed America was finally delivering on its promise, just look how long it took for us to devolve into another gilded age (the apparent default position of American society). It is foolish to define a thing based off aberrations, opposed its consistencies. In this way we clearly see the US for what it is … the second most successful marketing scheme in human history (naturally one must award Christianity top honors on that mark) … in the same way tobacco used to be good for you, that sodas were harmless, or how fast food is every bit nutritious as home-made, America cries ‘freedom’ when in so many ways the reverse is clearly the case. From ‘power’s’ perspective it’s nihilistically brilliant sure - give the people a semblance of freedom (in our case economic choice) and they’ll extrapolate that into a veritable cosmos of self-authorized-self-actualization - and you bet the monarchists, dictators, or petty politburos are jealous as hell at the level of control the political classes of America have been able to sustain generation after generation. A state of affairs that continues for no other reason than that an over-whelming majority of Americans keep believing the lies. We are forced to ask: why do they?

Let’s speculate wildly! Is it possible there exists some globe-spanning underground tributary of Lethe that constantly replenishes all the aquifers in the land? Or perhaps when we, on average a truly vain people, look into a mirror our historical consciousness is reset to zero? Or maybe we’ve all become so addicted to the stories we repeat about American Exceptionalism even the most destitute are content to sacrifice any chance they might have of another, better life, so as the stories can keep being told .?. the gyre is constricting at every turn, just like water flowing down the drain we’re becoming closer and closer to ourselves and ours; we’re losing a visceral sense of community and common cause through the ‘designed’ choices of a consumerist economy and specifically the newer technologies of self-absorption. So many of us don’t seem able to see past our own reflections, our problems, that even beginning to consider the larger problems facing our country seems as pointless as sending a manned mission to Mars.

The latent greed of the species is given free reign in America and this greed is destroying us. Making us sick. Stunted, withered, cloying little souls blighted with giga-myopia and eterno-amnesia. Greed. Most cultures have oft thought it a base emotion, one needing constant oversight - not the good ’ole US of A! We saw right through that ethical clap-trap - we saw that by harnessing the simmering greed of a people and putting them to work fulfilling that greed great things could happen … just absolutely amazing things … and we have accomplished quite a bit worth being proud over, and we sure have shown all those historical moralists just how wrong they were about the most solipsistic emotion … but this is a strange greed, our American one, one many may not even be aware of, so deep do its roots dive; a conniving greed that wraps in upon itself like a fresh burrito from Chipotle or those roller coasters you remember from Disneyland or Six-Flags … a greed that we have to learn to turn off, ignore, or quit seeing as so basic and benign in all our lives that there’s nothing you can do about it anyway - because it isn’t benign, it reacts to us and the environment as surely as we do it, and lately it’s been acting badly … yes, there are historical elements to this greed, there is also the question of personal responsibility, mutual complicity, systems of control and power as well - so many factors … I guess I’m nostalgic for another type of human being, one not fueled by avarice or beholden to the choices of others … qualities most seem to have lost somewhere on the way to Walmart … a human being that might never have existed except in a dream …

The Symbol

Human beings have long used symbols to represent value. Symbols are convenient, easy, and incredibly mutable. They can be transferred or translated almost infinitely. With a symbol ideas that might take an incredible amount of energy to explain or describe can be conveyed almost instantaneously. Logic and mathematics could likely not exist without them, nor, indeed, any language. And like any good thing, as is so often the case with any wonderfully useful thing, we humans have become dependent on them. Created for ourselves a world where we can not live without them. We are, in many ways, addicted to their utility. On its face there is nothing ethically challenging about this. Language and math are boons to humanity, practically describing our modern conception of ourselves. Symbols are naturally value neutral, like any high-level epistemological building block. And yet, we modern Americans have found ourselves in a tricky spot. We have crafted a society where one symbol is supreme. Where one symbol, and one symbol alone, holds all the power. A symbol that, if you find yourself without it, without access to it, without a stock-pile of it hiding somewhere, essentially makes you a non-entity. No longer part of the culture, the game. For it is certainly true that the only game in modern America is money. That collecting dollars has superseded all other activities; has supplanted any other endeavor as the only one with value. This state of affairs is the genesis of our cultural decline; of the death of the ideals that the Founders (who themselves were already playing the only game) attempted to instill in the New World: will in the end be understood by future historians as the single greatest crime of our time.

I say crime and I mean it. Don’t use the word for shock or awe. Nor do I want to dwell on this particular subject (not being the place for an extended analysis of this issue I will allow such a discussion its own essay, its own space, a place where it can be a bit more academic and dry, not so emotive or cynical) though we do have to mention a few more things before moving on. Crime. Yes. What was this crime? In short order here we go … it used to be the case that money was a symbol that referred to labor, actual work performed by one human that held value for another. So far as that is all money is, there is nothing ethically suspect about it. Then, at some point in the past, a few cunning paradigm-shifters saw an opportunity and changed the rules regarding what money was; they removed the labor as referent of value, replacing it with rare objects (typically gold) that few among any populace would ever see in their lives. Well, since the promise of alchemy was a lie, and the philosopher’s stone was never discovered, at least this money still referred to something real, something that couldn’t just be made up on the spot. Ah ha! the sons of the sneaky paradigm-shifters thought, that would just be the icing on the cake! Let’s remove the rare objects as value referent as well - let’s go all in on a communal mass delusion and see if anyone believes it … let’s just have money valued at whatever we say it’s valued at. Let’s create a massive shell game that only a very few will ever truly know the rules to, though the outcome, the results, will effect everyone … yes … let’s create the only game worth playing, and let’s give every live birth a turn … which leaves us with a system that, no matter how hard you work, no matter how industrious you are, if you don’t know the rules of the game (in modern America we can think of the Federal Reserve, Wall Street bankers, old money, select members of the Treasury Department etc. as the holders of the rule book) you will not win at it. You will play and play and play and keep losing and losing and losing all the while the rule keepers keep winning and winning and winning because for most players in this game the tokens of victory they collect (dollars) are bought at the hard price of actual labor, as if they never heard about how money grew up - no, they slave and slave for pennies without any chance of leveling up in this game and getting to that haughty echelon where money is no longer about work but having money make money off of someone else’s work … this little narrative I just outlined is a crime because there are clear stealers and victims (of course there are exceptions to every rule, but for every Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, there are a hundred and fifty million working at Walmart for a slave-wage). You see, the architects of the monetary symbol’s paradigm shift knew that by removing any referent to an actual act (labor) or object (gold) they were essentially hollowing out the natural relationship between the symbol and the symbolized, and in that empty space they would find their own El Dorado; their own little universe where they called the shots and none other. They essentially re-wrote the rules of symbolism, and clearly in their favor. And while symbols shift meaning all the time, especially in religious or political environments, these shifts are fundamentally harmless as neither religion or political discourse ever directly affects the physical well being of a human being as does their ability to acquire food, or energy, or health care, or shelter (I understand that by including ‘politics’ in this sense I might seem to be advocating a ‘post-history’ perspective; one where capitalistic-liberalism has won over all other political narratives, and while I hope that isn’t so, at the moment, and especially as an American author, one would be hard pressed to argue the point otherwise). To be clear, I’m not suggesting there was some shadowy cabal that gathered and planned out this great hollowing out of the monetary symbol; as is often the case it happened by fits and starts, here and there, as history would have it, propelled by the innate greed of the least amongst us. And yet they have scored a grand victory, these acolytes of avarice. Have pulled the proverbial wool over so many eyes - and in the process redefined a country that promised freedom into a vassal state completely enthralled to an ugly little strip of green denim that truly means nothing at all …

Of course this transformation did not just occur on American soil. But we sure as hell took the ball and ran it home. More than any other modern nation we are more readily defined by the empty symbology of the dollar than any others. This is not just an American problem; but we must be the first to address it …

America’s enslavement to the dollar is the singular cause of all the problems I put forth in ‘The Surface’, and, in many ways, ‘The Self’. We are a nation of suckers, rats, blind idealists, idiot sensualists, blatant thieves and the occasional dreamer … and knowing that, seeing my country in this way does nothing to alleviate my pathological cynicism … but allow me a query - do you still ask me why I am so cynical .?.  

[magicclownengineer-blog]

50 Possibilities

1.    Through my 4 week project I worked with a range of materials, one of these being cloth. I had only ever considered sewing material but this time I used it as more of a sculpting material which led me to the idea of sculpting a interactive scene by folding and laying material. That then gave me the idea of expanding this into maybe a miniature world. I could use different material colours and way of shaping it to create a world out of cloth. 

2.      A project earlier in the year led me to create a space painting in which I hung paper clips over the front as this piece was to represent all the junk floating in the atmosphere. At the end of this piece my tutor challenged me on scale which gave me an idea for a similar interactive piece where I could craft a globe coming out of the background and use other pieces to create a 3D background but to then use recycling/junk to hang so the scale is increased. This then creates a space where you can stand in all the junk and really get a perspective.

3.      Expanding off of this I could even just consider creating a final major piece that represents a current issue in the world or society that really puts it across in the exhibit. 

4.      On the contrary I could possibly come up with an idea that represents something positive in the world to give people something uplifting to exhibit.

5.      Over the year I worked with a range of new materials and machines as well as artists and I could maybe create a piece including each stage of my journey just by taking one part from each stage to let them create a piece on their own.

6.      Like the artist I have researched and small pieces I have made along the way I could consider a more complicated piece working with shadows and look into how I can take this a step further.

7.      Another idea I could try is to create a line of coherent pieces, possibly I could paint a repetitive picture but each in a different media or this in 3D by creating a repetitive sculpture each out of a different material. Or I could just make multiple pieces that come to create one exhibit. 

8.      As I researched in my 4 week project I could take the idea of using only recycling only to inspire and idea as I wanted to try this on a larger more professional scale while I have the facilities and space. 

9.      Before starting this course I had a plan to learn a bit more in electronics and animatronics as I have always been down the props route so I wanted to do a simple animatronic to gain a base of skills within that part of the prop industry so I can keep the idea in mind of how I can adapt something to include this idea.

10.   I looked at the artist Alexis Noriega who makes mechanical wings that are like costume props that take a lot of detail so maybe I could go off the props route a little and make a crafted look like I would make props but formed in a way that it can be worn. This would give me a knew outlook on prop making to be making them in such a different form.

11.   I could consider choosing one object such as a book and make something out of as many or as little books as I want. I could use the covers to add to the piece or fold the books. I could do this with anything like chairs. Only limiting my self to an object but not quantity or process as I feel the idea of this process would add a lot of interest to the piece its self.

12.   An idea I could take from my 50s project could be to create coherent pieces that are also a sort of puzzle. I could look into engineering interlocking systems and maybe find new materials to work with as well as deciding between more 2D or 3D. 

13.   Another idea I have had is that I could possibly create a prop of something that doesn’t seem very interesting that can open or transform into a completely different piece that is a lot more vibrant and unexpected. I am thinking of taking ideas from a boring every day object.

14.   I have recently been interested in practicing with Styrofoam as I feel it would be great to have skills in as I continue in to the prop making route. Maybe I could try a large sculpting piece carving Styrofoam and experiment with decorating and finishing it to get more knowledge on working professionally with this material.

15.   Similarly, I can maybe attempt to create a sculpture through casting as I haven’t had much of a chance to work with resin or take a professional cast of my sculpt however I don’t know how I would make this into an exhibit.

16.   Like the recycling idea I could just go around buying or collecting on wanted items to possibly create a piece or a sculpture. It would be cool to try and bring a load of objects in to one piece. Working with the objects to connect them up in some way.

17.   I could consider creating a large canvas collage using all the materials I have worked with this year. I was originally thinking not creating an image, but I could consider this too.

18.   To stick to my props career path, I can look into props and attempt a replica but put my own twist on it. As a replica wouldn’t show my design skills. I could maybe even take inspiration from multiple props.

19.   Another idea could be to get the public involved and display my final major of them reacting to a piece I have made. 

20.   Maybe I could work with the out doors or something already set up in an environment and design a piece/ create a space within it to completely change its look.

21.   Another source I could consider getting all my materials from nature and working with what I can find. I could plan to build a structure out of branches and use smaller things for decorations well as letting the materials I find inspire me.

22.   Rather then applying materials I could create a piece by carving or taking away from my material using a scalpel by using a large piece of paper or something like cut out a design that creates an intricate image.

23.   Further in to new knowledge I could possibly create a piece using computer programming to try out machines such as a laser cutter, 3D printer and maybe other machinery I don’t yet know. This would help me prepare for my university choice as well as they now work a lot with 3D printing for modelmaking.

24.   In my 4 week project I found a lot of materials could be used to create pieces through folding to shape them so I could maybe try to take this to a new level by creating a large piece of something just by folding either one material or various.

25.   I could consider the idea of creating a piece that works in layer. I not sure how as this is a more open idea but to create a piece either built in layers or comes apart in layers could be interesting.

26.   Like the idea I had about limiting my self to possibly on specific material or area I could limit my self to just one process e.g cutting, painting or others as this could direct my piece but it might make it difficult.

27.   Another idea that could be interesting would be to let other people pick out my materials, so I don’t have any way of planning until I know what they have chosen.

28.   Something I could consider is playing with state e.g solid, liquid and gas as maybe a theme or my materials.

29.   I could use junk or recycled materials but use working electronics to create a piece that moves or something, this will also limit what materials I may find.

30.   I could maybe create a piece that is interactive by being able to change its shape through touch.

31.   I could not only create a material often seen as tough to be soft I could also challenge the dimension materials are often used to work in like my realization within the 4-week project with cloth.

32.   I could create a piece to represent all the diversity of art styles by using a range of different styles to create a piece as again this could really bring up some different ways of working in the future as well as making an interesting and engaging piece.

33.   I created a painting early in the course by putting everything into block colour and shapes to still capture the image but take away almost all the detail so this is a concept I feel would be good to consider as possibly apart of another idea.

34.   Similarly, I could research into a specific art style I haven’t really looked at or worked with before as this would teach me a completely new skill within art and I could consider applying this to whatever I make.

35.   From my 4 week project I could possibly attempt to upcycle a large item that would otherwise be thrown away. This could either be the piece or be built of to create a piece, but I feel this idea would really direct my piece.

36.   I could research into ways prop making skills are used to make things out side of props e.g costume to gain more skills within the industry but to also expand my making skills in general.

37.   Maybe I could research into a target audience to inspire a piece as well as learn some techniques to direct my piece to entertain and engage people as from a career point of view this is a very key feature.

38.   I could possibly play with junk that still works but play around with sound so that it creates or represents a message.

39.   One idea could possibly be to use materials that in no way match or look good together to try to create a piece that works.

40.   I could take inspiration from one specific artists work to either remake their pieces in a completely different way or create a piece completely based off of what inspires them.

41.   Maybe I can make a piece that is interactive by moving around people to involve them without them having to involve themselves as this might gain more interest as well as creating a fun feature for my piece.

42.   I could make a replica of something however of something natural so I have creative licence for the expression or pose of what I make as this could really contribute to my skills in detail.

43.   From pathway I learnt about stop motion and this is possibly something I could try again as making the models for stop motion is possibly something I want to do.

44.   I could maybe choose a story to inspire my piece to give me the meaning to work of while designing my piece.

45.   Another thing I could do is buy in all new things for what I want to build so that I have completely free range of ideas however the only worry with this is budget.

46.   Like the idea of basing a piece off texture I could try coming up with a piece based round one texture or finish such as shiny.

47.   What I could do is take 4 or 5 ideas from this list to make a range of piece and then in some way bring those together either in the way I display them or merge them together.

48.   As I haven’t worked much with sewing and clothing material, I could maybe build of a stuffed toy to create a character with a lot of personality by sewing onto it.

49.   I could possibly create a working prop where its interactive by doing what you’d expect e.g I could make a tree that maybe drops leaves and can change with the seasons or make a flower that loses petals.

50.   I could maybe attempt a futuristic, hyper reality theme by taking anyone of these ideas and adding this into the planning.

[rickhorrow]

15+5+5 To Watch : 41519

15 TO WATCH/5 SPORTS TECH/POWER OF SPORTS 5: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 15 with Jacob Aere

Step aside, George Foreman. Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters victory now tops the list of greatest comebacks in sports, and elsewhere. Turning back the clock and delivering another vintage Sunday performance at Augusta, Tiger Woods held off the best players in the world to capture his fifth green jacket and 15th career major championship. In doing so, he joined the likes of boxer Foreman, California Governor Jerry Brown, entertainers Robert Downey, Jr., Glenn Close, and Justin Timberlake and mogul Martha Stewart in making a significant cultural impact years after their assumed peak and following a major gap in their career timeline. As testament to Woods’ wide-reaching impact, Twitter noted that over a span of two hours on Sunday, there were over 1.4 million tweets about Woods and more than 1.8 million about the Masters. Sports celebrities including Jack Nicklaus, Serena Williams, Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, and Michael Phelps added their voices to the throng, as did two U.S. Presidents, Obama and Trump. For the next weeks, and perhaps months, we will continue to put into perspective what Tiger’s victory on Masters Sunday means to sports, and what it means to society.  

Tigers’ Masters victory: other winners and losers. Let’s start with the biggest winner: CBS. According to a release from CBS Sports, Saturday’s Masters coverage was the highest-rated Saturday golf telecast on any network since 2015. It also featured a 5% increase in ratings over last year. Given the Tiger Effect, Sunday’s final ratings will blow the doors off those increases. Other major stakeholders benefitting from Tiger’s victory are Nike, which stuck by him during the troubled years, the PGA and the state of New York, looking ahead to the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black May 16-19, the golf industry as a whole, and fans. But even on this happy sports day, there are losers. The NBA and NHL had to air playoff games across from a Masters final round held early due to weather. Ditto the U.S. women’s hockey team, which defeated Finland to win their fifth consecutive women’s hockey world championship gold medal but likely had few casual fans watching back home. At Bethpage and elsewhere Tiger tees it up, the rest of the field will see its screen time vanish as TigerTV – every hole, every shot – blasts back. The biggest losers? The pocketbooks of 2020 Masters patrons. Secondary market badges averaged $2,500 per day this year. Next year, look for that marker to move north of $3,000.

Augusta National, Westeros collide. When you envision Masters patrons, you don’t necessarily think of “Game of Thrones” fans. Which may be, according to GolfWeek, the precise reason the Masters has pulled off one of the boldest buzz-building moves in its recent history. Over the weekend, the club tweeted out a promotional clip showing the 12th hole under snow before shifting to its normal glorious springtime view. To even further pull at the heartstrings of Masters and Thrones fans, the 30-second promo also morphed Ramin Djawadi’s Emmy-winning “Game of Thrones” theme with the Masters’ famous Dave Loggins instrumental score. HBO’s blockbuster series may be entering the most anticipated final season in television history – if the 61 million plus views of the season trailer are any indication.  The bridge between the Masters and Sunday’s “Game of Thrones” return was an unprecedented nod to pop culture for Augusta National, which has traditionally not acknowledged much that goes on outside its hallowed gates. 

Heads up! This year, Minor League Baseball fans might notice new digital screens and displays at their favorite stadiums. Together with ISM Connect, over 25 MiLB teams will be adding new smart displays to their ballparks. But beyond delivering unique stories and creative ads to fans during each game, these displays are also equipped with smart cameras to measure audience engagement. These smart cameras will help keep ads and content fresh. The cameras record anonymous interactions -- how long someone watches the screen or their age range -- not individual images of specific people. By measuring foot traffic and engagement, MiLB teams and ad sponsors can better understand who their fans are, what resonates with them, and how they’re experiencing each game. The result is a better, more engaging experience for fans, and a better way for teams and partners to learn how to best serve their loyal audience.

Stanley Cup Playoff storylines intrigue as the NHL enters its second week of the post season. Here are a few big picture scenarios for 2019. First, the Tampa Bay Lightning are in the conversation for best regular season team ever. The Lightning won 62 games, something only one other team has done -- the Detroit Red Wings in 1995-1996. However, of the 13 teams that have finished with the NHL's best record since the 2004-2005 lockout, only two -- the 2007-2008 Red Wings and the 2012-2013 Chicago Blackhawks — have gone on to lift the Stanley Cup. Second, the Stanley Cup hasn't been won by a Canadian team since Montreal took it home 26 years ago. However, three Canadian squads are in this year's mix — the Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, and Winnipeg Jets — and Calgary has the second-best odds of capturing the title, per The Action Network. Finally, in his first full season as NHL owner, Tom Dundon helped the Carolina Hurricanes make the playoffs for the first time since 2009. In Raleigh, Dundon is a hero. Elsewhere, he's more of a villain, as he pulled the plug on the Alliance of American Football's inaugural season less than seven weeks after investing $250 million to rescue the league.

As the Stanley Cup Playoffs intensify, the New Jersey Devils won the 2019 NHL draft lottery after entering with the third-best odds. It's the second lottery win in three years for the Devils, who selected center Nico Hischier with the top pick in 2017. The prize of this year's draft is 17-year-old Jack Hughes, who the Devils will almost certainly make the eighth American-born player to be taken with the No. 1 pick. Hughes is set to make history as the first U.S. National Team Development Program player to jump straight to the NHL. There, he rewrote record books, blowing past the likes of NHL standouts Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Patrick Kane, and Phil Kessel. "You can spend the rest of your hockey career trying to find another player like Jack," claimed an anonymous NHL exec quoted by The Athletic. Elsewhere, the Rangers jumped up from No. 6 to snag the second overall pick, and the Blackhawks made an even more dramatic move, going from No. 12 all the way to No. 3.

The average Major League Baseball team is worth $1.78 billion according to Forbes latest valuations, an 8% increase from last year. Additionally, all 30 MLB franchises are worth at least $1 billion; whereas a decade ago, only two were: the Mets and the Yankees. The rest of the league has caught up to the Mets and Yankees, who rank dead last and third-to-last, respectively, in growth since 2009. The Giants saw the biggest increase in value over the last decade. MLB's ownership stakes in MLB Advanced Media (100%), BamTech (15%), and MLB Network (67%), as well as the league's investment portfolio, were included in the valuations and equally divided among the 30 teams, constituting over $400 million in value per franchise. Over the 22 years that Forbes has conducted its valuations, the average MLB team value has increased 11% year-over-year, while NBA and NFL team values have increased 13% and 12%, respectively. The MLB increases are going to get even bigger in 2022, when baseball's seven-year, $5.1 billion deal with FOX kicks in.

Congressmen threaten MLB antitrust exemption over RSN bid. U.S. Representatives Elijah Cummings and Raja Krishnamoorthi threatened MLB’s antitrust exemption over the league’s attempt to buy the 21 Fox-branded RSNs. In a letter sent to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, the two House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform members wrote that they are concerned about the potential for “anticompetitive conduct that harms American consumers” if MLB buys the RSNs. “MLB’s potential purchase of these RSNs raises significant questions about the antitrust exemption that professional baseball has enjoyed for nearly a century,” they wrote. “Although the Supreme Court has upheld baseball’s unique, judicially-created antitrust exemption for nearly a century on the basis of stare decisis, the Court has also described the exemption as an ‘aberration’ and recognized Congress’ ability to limit or even eliminate it.” The congressmen gave MLB only two weeks to produce documents relating to MLB’s potential acquisition and operation of the RSNs.

The Trump administration has nixed Major League Baseball's historic agreement with the Cuban Baseball Federation (CBF) that would have made it easier for Cuban players to enter the U.S. legally without needing to defect. According to Axios Sports, the goal of this deal was to help end the dangerous trafficking of Cuban players that has gone on for decades, resulting in players being threatened, extorted or even kidnapped. Take Yasiel Puig, now an outfielder with the Cincinnati Reds. After helping Puig escape Cuba, traffickers affiliated with a notorious Mexican drug cartel held him for ransom on a small island for weeks. The Cuban agreement is similar to the deals MLB has with China, Korean, and Japan, and dates back to the Obama administration’s détente with Cuba, which intended to soften relations between the two nations. However, the Trump White House last Monday argued that the CBF is a branch of the Cuban government and that the agreement, therefore, violates U.S. trade law since MLB would be paying a fee in exchange for each player. A geopolitical war is being waged — and young baseball players with dreams of a better life are the collateral damage.

NCAA March Madness Live set all-time tournament records in live streams – over 100 million – and live hours consumed (over 24 million), up 31% and 29% vs. last year. According to JohnWallStreet, NCAA March Madness Live generated a record for last night’s NCAA Championship Game based on live uniques, with live streams and live hours consumed showing increases of 19% and 7% vs. last year. Competitive intelligence platforms BrandTotal reports that AT&T, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Infiniti ran some of the top social media campaigns during the NCAA men's basketball tournament, with BWW posting fairly evenly across social using Facebook (31%), Instagram (39%), and Twitter (30%) with the most viewed ad, in terms of engagement, being an Instagram Dark post about March Madness. AT&T leveraged YouTube as its main medium, with Instagram as its second and Facebook third, and scored a positive sentiment report of 45% and a negative sentiment 18%. Infinity used Instagram in 85% of its posts with the other 14% coming from Facebook, scoring a 2% negative sentiment report for its campaign and 29% positive. As more and more people consume media online, look for these numbers to continue to increase by double figures for the foreseeable future.

The L.A. Clippers honored retiring Hall of Fame broadcaster Ralph Lawler during their regular-season finale against the Jazz with a special halftime ceremony to celebrate his 40 years with the team. The Clippers unveiled a special logo on the court at Staples Center, and players wore a special shooting shirt. The first 10,000 fans on hand for Ralph Lawler Night also received Lawler bobbleheads. NBA Legend Bill Walton joined Lawler on the call during the game, and CarMax presented “a check to the charity of Lawler's choice," according to the Los Angeles Daily News. The Clippers actions honoring a longtime figure in the Clippers “family” stood in stark contrast to the turmoil surrounding their Staples Center locker mates the Los Angeles Lakers, who fired Walton’s son Luke as their coach after yet another season in which the franchise failed to make the NBA Playoffs and team president and NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson abruptly resigned. An All-Star in his own right, Lawler will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in September. 

The Boston Marathon passes $200 million in economic impact, and welcomes seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson to its field. This year's Boston Marathon, held Monday April 15 and carried on NBCSports Network, will be the 123rd running of the race that winds its way 26.2 miles from the town of Hopkinton to the finish line at Copley Square. It is the world's oldest annual marathon, starting in 1897 after the successful debut of the marathon at the first modern Olympics in 1896. The Boston Marathon is traditionally held on Patriots Day, the third Monday in April. The Boston Red Sox also have a traditional home game on Patriots Day with an 11:05 a.m. first pitch against the Orioles this year. Boston is among the six largest marathons, along with Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City. A special prize purse is given to runners who accumulate the most points in the majors. Here's a bit of trivia: Just five national sporting events were held during the two World Wars, and the Boston Marathon was one. The others? The Kentucky Derby, Penn Relays, Rose Parade, and Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. 

NASCAR has reportedly rejected an offer from Monster Energy to extend its title sponsorship of the US stock car racing series in order to push ahead with a new tiered partnership model. According to SportsBusiness Journal, the energy drink brand offered to extend its deal for an additional year to give NASCAR more time to finalize its sponsorship restructure. However, NASCAR has apparently turned down that option to keep moving forward with the new model, with Monster now in talks about becoming a lower-level partner. NASCAR’s switch to a tiered sponsorship model has been rumored for some time, and the series is reportedly asking for close to $20 million per year for top-tier deals. SportsBusiness Journal added that Monster would likely land a second-tier sponsorship deal, although it is not yet clear how much NASCAR wants for those slots. Monster was first named NASCAR title sponsor in 2017 as part of a two-year deal estimated to be worth an annual $20 million. The company then extended the partnership for a further season last April. The new arrangement would see NASCAR’s premier series be known as the NASCAR Cup Series, rather than the title-sponsored Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

A new ESPN deal with the Big 12 guarantees three football title games. The Big 12 has agreed to a deal that gives ESPN the rights to all Big 12 football championship games through 2024 and makes the league the first Power Five conference to provide exclusive content to ESPN+, the cable giant's online subscription streaming service. According to USA Today, the new agreement also calls for Big 12 content on ESPN+ to be branded specifically for the conference, creating a de facto digital conference network. Fox and ESPN share television rights to Big 12 games and are in the middle of a 13-year deal worth $2.6 billion signed in 2012. This is good news not only for ESPN and the Big 12, but for college football fans everywhere.

La Liga, Spanish soccer’s top-flight league, has been named the eighth biggest brand domestically, according to a report by valuation and strategy consultancy Brand Finance. The report places La Liga above major Spanish brands such as the insurance provider Mapfre and telecommunications company Movistar. Using its brand strength score metric, a figure based on calculations regarding emotional connection, financial performance and sustainability, Brand Finance gave La Liga a score of 80.7 out of 100. Fashion retailer Zara topped the Brand Finance list overall, with the likes of Santander and Iberdrola also featuring inside its top ten. The new 2019 report marks the first time a sports league has appeared in Brand Finance’s top ten, highlighting the continued growth of La Liga. Brand Finance values the league body at $548 million. Based on monetary value along it occupies 50th place on the list, a considerable drop. However, taking into account the value of participating league clubs – which includes the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid – La Liga’s overall value jumps to $4.5 billion, which would place it sixth on that list.

Top Five Tech

Opendorse has helped to rank the most “engaging” online PGA golfers. Ahead of Masters Week, the athlete marketing platform released its Top 5 in Gold with the then betting favorite to win the Masters, Rory McIlroy, leading the way by a steady margin with 1.21 million engagements since the start of 2019.  According to Sports Media Report, McIlroy’s Facebook engagements alone were nearly eight times that of the second player on the list, Rickie Fowler, whose total numbers amassed 1.05 million engagements. In third, fourth, and fifth were Justin Rose, Justin Thomas, and Ian Poulter respectively. Opendorse was able to calculate these numbers based off every like, share, retweet, comment, and other social factors each players’ posts received during the indicated time period. Using opendorse to track the top PGA golfers can help with advertising as it provides hard numbers for the number of people viewing a single athlete’s social feeds.

At The Masters, IBM tracked over 20,000 golf shots to create its automated highlights. IBM tracked every shot taken by every player during The Masters Tournament and used its artificial intelligence platform Watson to produce three-minute highlights of every round. According to SportTechie, IBM launched automated highlights for a select few players last year and expanded those capabilities to include all of the roughly 90 players at the 2019 Masters. The AI helped power the Masters’ “Round in Three Minutes” feature, which is a highlights package that served fans across the tournament’s digital platforms a bite-sized summary of a single player’s round. One of the most complex artificial intelligence systems around, IBM’s work at the Masters is helping to further teach its already complex Watson to create opportunities for the tech company to repackage and expand its capabilities to clients in other industries outside of sports.

Your Call Football looks to change the future of the game through tech. According to ESPN, YCF is part football, part gaming, part fantasy and allows fans to decide how an actual in-progress game is played, as if Madden came to life. Every Monday night for four weeks in the spring, fans get a notification at 8 p.m. to open the YCF app. They are given a coach-selected "bundle" of three plays to choose from and each fan has 10 seconds to decide what the team's offense should do next on their app. The game is free to play, there are cash prizes, and fans are awarded points when they select what the coach wanted and when their play selection is successful. On the other hand, fans who don't pick with the majority are awarded points when the majority-chosen play results in a negative play, like a sack or an incompletion. At the end of the 10 seconds, the play is radioed into the huddle with the whole sequence taking just 19 seconds, no longer than a normal football game. For a generation of hyper-connectivity, YCF wants to bring the digital world into live sports and give millennials who have stopped paying attention a reason to actually care.

The World Rallycross Championship (WRX) will launch an electric series that will run alongside its traditional format. Launched by WRX promoter IMG Motorsports, "Projekt E" will see electric-powered cars compete on the same weekend as regular Supercars races, with the series reportedly starting in 2020, according to industry outlet Autosport. The move comes after WRX's proposals to shift the main racing series to electric cars for 2021 fell through after failing to garner enough support in a manufacturer vote in March. According to SportsPro, Rallycross is considered by series bosses as the perfect stage for showcasing electrified motorsport. With its short races -- the longest is just over five minutes -- and use of road cars, it is seen as an ideal shop window for manufacturers to display their electric innovations to the mass market.

AKQA uses AI to invent a new sport called Speedgate. According to TechCrunch, the digital agency wanted to do something “really ambitious” for Design Week Portland, and given the team’s work with Nike, it made sense to ask: “What if we invented the next basketball, the next football?” AKQA used an existing recurrent neural network architecture, feeding it data of 400 sports, which it used to generate sports concepts and rules. The AI was good at coming up with descriptions for sports like “underwater parkour” but reviews were mixed. It also suggested creating rules for a sport where players pass a ball back-and-forth while in hot air balloons or on a tightrope. AKQA Creative Director Whitney Jenkins insisted that Speedgate could never have been created by humans alone: “Using AI as a member of a creative team takes us to a new place that we never could have gotten to without it.” But it still took a back-and-forth process with humans to narrow the list down for playtesting.

Power of Sports Five

The USTA Foundation unveils celebrity and player council in New York. According to SportsBusiness Journal, at a lunch with media at the Penn Club in Manhattan, the USTA’s charitable arm last week introduced its celebrity and player council, including Alec Baldwin, Katie Couric, and "Shark Tank" regular Daymond John – all avid tennis fans. “Anything I can do to bring tennis into the lives of young people,” said Baldwin, who serves as Chair of the 15-member council. Also attending the lunch were celebrity and player council members Billie Jean King and ESPN’s Chris McKendry, as well as USTA Foundation Chair Chris Evert. The USTA appointed Evert to the role two months ago, and it was her idea to more aggressively use the celebrity council to raise awareness and funds. The USTA Foundation has awarded $40 million in its history to bring tennis and education to underserved communities.

Chevrolet recently wrapped a fifth season of its GoalKeepers campaign, a program built with the Women’s Sports Foundation surrounding the brand’s Manchester United sponsorship in the U.K. The goal of GoalKeepers is to inspire girls to #BeAGoalKeeper, in soccer and in the pursuit of their dreams. The eight-month-long campaign involved 11 girls ages 11-15 from across the U.S. selected by an application process to immerse themselves in mentorship, regional activities, and a grand finale trip to England for a weeklong workshop. The insight by Ernst & Young guiding the program: that more than 94% of female business leaders played sports as children. Compare that figure to the sad statistic that by age 14, girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys, and Chevy has recognized an opportunity to support female empowerment with a recipe involving its soccer sponsorship and role as official automotive partner of the Women’s Sports Foundation. Sponsorships connect brands to consumer passion points, but they can also open doors to help brands make a real difference in the lives of fans.

AT&T becomes the first non-apparel company with logo on WNBA jerseys. AT&T will become the first non-apparel partner to have its logo featured on all WNBA jerseys as part of a new deal, with the tech company and the league also planning to collaborate on programs that support women in sports. According to Hashtag Sports, the jerseys debuted during last week’s WNBA Draft held at Nike’s new NYHQ. “Whether it’s women in sports, supporting small businesses like those owned by WNBA players, being a leading voice in LGBTQ rights, or giving back to communities in which we operate, we have much in common and many opportunities to empower these incredible athletes and their fans,” said Fiona Carter, AT&T’s chief brand officer. Sports sponsorship deals can be important gateways to philanthropy. With this latest move, AT&T is demonstrating that giving back is as important to the telecom company as selling mobile phones and service plans.

The NHL is recruiting teenage advisors to be a part of its NHL Power Players program. The NHL is recruiting a group of youth advisers to help the league better connect with Gen Z and get them invested in the sport. The council will assist and provide insight and suggestions to the league on matters including marketing, community engagement, events, social content, and understanding rules of play. Applicants must be between the age of 13 to 17, be open, honest and willing to share their ideas with the NHL and their peers as well as have a passion for hockey. Power Players is born from the actions of Sabrina Solomon, a teenaged avid hockey fan. In 2017, just after the NHL’s CMO Heidi Browning had started in that role, Browning did an interview with the Wall Street Journal about her plans for the league. Solomon, who was then just 11 years old, saw the article and wrote to Browning, telling her she had some ideas of her own. Impressed, Browning invited her into the NHL’s offices for the day. The hope is that with these varied insights from the team of Power Players, the NHL can get a better picture of what Gen Z is looking for from a pro sports organization.

April is National Autism Awareness Month, and the MLF Bass Pro Tour roster is participating in the way they know best: by catching fish. Most of the field of 80 anglers competing in the next two Bass Pro Tour events are pledging “dollars per pound” donations to their favorite autism awareness organization, and they’re asking their fans to consider doing the same. “Autism affects so many families, we’re just doing our best to encourage people to do whatever they can for their local autism awareness organization,” said Kevin VanDam, who is pledging a robust $5 for every pound of fish he records on SCORETRACKER. MLF anglers participating in April’s awareness and fundraising effort will combine their weights and contributions from the Stage Four event on Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee, and the Stage Five event on Smith Lake in Alabama. With big weights of Florida-strain largemouth expected on Chickamauga and even heavier overall weights of spotted bass on Smith Lake, those dollars-per-pound pledge could add up quickly. The angler with the most weight at these two tournaments will be recognized as the Autism Awareness Champion.

[hub-pub-bub]

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Valuing the Worldwide Markets at €122 Billion

In order to “produce a broader and more complete picture of where the industry is going,” publishing consultant Rüdiger Wischenbart in Vienna tells Publishing Perspectives, “we invite publishers and other stakeholders to join in by both supporting BookMap and becoming members of its advisory board.”

BookMap, which was announced to coincide with Frankfurt Book Fair, aims to collect market data and information on various book markets and provide the industry with trends and insights on global book publishing.

BookMap “already has a cooperation going with leading educational institutions,” Wischenbart says, “like Oxford Brookes University in the UK, Lieden in the Netherlands, France’s Sorbonne, and the University of Ljubljana” in Slovenia.

The project is set up as a nonprofit company in Austria, under Wischenbart’s consultancy CulturalTransfers.org. Member organizations, he says, are making contributions to the program of between €500 and €4,000, according to their size.

“The main goal,” Wischenbart says, “is to find publishers and any other interested stakeholders to join the effort by contributing money and serving on the project’s advisory board.

“Our ambition is to find active members and supporters ranging from the big corporations to independents, industry service and trade organizations, and—why not—interested individuals.” Benefits are keyed on the amount of contribution.

Rüdiger Wischenbart at Frankfurt Book Fair’s CEO Talk. Image: Frankfurter Buchmesse, Bernd Hartung

While he has produced the Global Ebook Report annually, and directs the Klopotek-backed Publishers’ Forum conference in Berlin each spring, Wischenbart is looking for a wider purview here, he says. And in launching the project, Wischenbart has produced an initial report in association with Mariana Bueno, Carlo Carrenho, and Michaela Anna Fleischhacker, called “How Big is Global Publishing?”

The answer comes in the second sentence of the introduction: “Honestly, we don’t know exactly how big overall the international book markets are.”

Indeed, as globalization progresses in publishing, this factor dogs the industry on the world scale—with so many distinctions from market to market—and on the national scale where, for example, the dominance of online sales for ebooks can mean that analysts must operated without hard sales figures.

Wischenbart’s report estimates “the worldwide market value at consumer prices at around €122 billion (US$143.4 billion).  As such, the report says, “book publishing is bigger than music, video games, or filmed entertainment, roughly equal to newspaper publishing, yet clearly smaller than in-home video entertainment, which is almost double that size.”

And while “not sliding as badly as the newspaper or consumer magazine industry,” the introduction reads, publishing is “certainly not growing, either” on the world scale, “as are video games, in-home video entertainment, or even cinema.”

The program draws its figures from “professional trade organizations, trade publications, the publishing industry, plus a few public institutions,” writes Wischenbart in the report, and he cautions that “we lack any standard definitions of what is to be counted as publishing, as a title, or for what is included by national data aggregators, and whatnot.” Many apples and many oranges are rolling around here, in other words.

“Confronted with inconsistent data, we did our best to verify, for each number, what it represents. But we must be clear that in many instances, we had to work with estimates, extrapolations, and also with figures that are between one and five years old.

“What we put into this report is the best that we could find.”

This refreshing candor about a methodology with many unavoidable weak spots, may, of course, be rewarded by more reliable pictures of the world industry if the support of BookMap contributors makes more accurate assessments available in time.

And at the outset, several points of interest are included in the introductory report. Below are several charts that offer a sample of the report, which can be found here.

Graphic: BookMap.org 2017

The World’s 20 Biggest Book Publishing Markets

As seen in the graphic above, the United States, China, and German lead the way in the seven largest markets. When added to the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and India, the report tells us, you’re talking about some 69 percent of the whole.

Once beyond those seven markets, however, Wischenbart encounters “treacherous terrain,” he writes.

And in a logical observation but a good one to make, we read, “The size of a population is mirrored by book markets to a much lesser degree than a given population’s wealth, and subsequently its access to education.”

In this chart from the initial BookMap report, 17 markets are represented with their title production, spending on books per capita, and GDP taken into account. Graphic: BookMap.org 2017

Selected Points on Specific Markets

Some of the interesting lines in the 24-page report are these, with more to be found in the full offering.

“The United States’ publishers have not extended their international commerce in books, partly because the leading houses tend to organize this from their London based branch offices, but also because a huge domestic market makes the overseas business appear as a challenging, far away possibility.”

“Norway [Frankfurt Book Fair’s 2019 Guest of Honor] has a particularly significant title output per capita, as cultural activities are encouraged by government subsidies, and a high-value market, reflecting generally upscale price levels.”

“Austria stands out as an example for several smaller European countries [that have] much bigger neighbors of the same language [as Austria has Germany]. The spending on books is significant, but [these books] are mostly imported from German publishers. The domestic title output reflects available government subsidies for smaller publishers.”

“Spain stands out [among mid-sized to large wealthy markets in] its title production, which reflects overseas’ demand for Spanish books.”

“Turkey is one of the few examples of a country that has almost caught up with the ‘bookish elite’ club in the middle.”

“Poland represents a mid-sized country and economy, with some challenges typical also for the region of Central and Eastern Europe.”

“India’s book market continues to grow, comparable to China, yet with special low pricing [and] huge imports, whereas China could build a strong domestic sector. In India, publishing in local ‘Indian’ languages has gained momentum only recently.”

“Mexico, and to a lesser degree Argentina, are examples of [markets that have enjoyed] recent government encouragement for local publishers, to strengthen the country against an overweight of imports. But together with other Latin American countries with similar ambitions, a long and economically winding road is expected ahead.”

Despite many sets of “notes on the applied methodology”—which earnestly help clarify how many comparisons of market dynamics on the international scene are based in supposition and assumption—the report is an interesting one when taken as a kind of baseline for future assessments in the BookMap program.

Graphic: BookMap.org 2017

Comparisons and Contrasts

Among the topics that receive specific attention:

Country closeups on:

The United States and China

France and Germany

The United Kingdom and Japan

China and Mexico

Brazil and Russia

Spain and Italy

Here also is a four-market look at China, Brazil, Russia, and Mexico; a look at five non-English-language markets in the European Union, and more.

“The new non-profit BookMap initiative,” the report concludes, “has the ambition to explore some of these paths, not alone, but by taking advantage of existing relevant research efforts, together with, and to the benefit of, interested stakeholders, who include publishers, booksellers and librarians, professional services like book-fairs and conventions, professional educators, or policymakers.”

For more information and to look into participation, see BookMap.org or send an email to office@bookmap.org.

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. Prior to that he was Associate Editor for The FutureBook, a channel at The Bookseller focused on digital publishing. Anderson has also worked with CNN International, CNN.com, CNN USA, the Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and other media.

Tags: Austria, BookMap, market analysis, Rüdiger Wischenbart, statistics

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YouTube Circa 2017

Circa 2014 I was obsessed with YouTube (in fact, I was...and still am... subscribed to over 200 channels and watched those videos on the site daily) but when my favorite bloggers started becoming more and more popular...their content changed. And with it, went my love for the site. I have always relied on YouTube to watch videos of things I liked (makeup tutorials, fashion hauls, etc.) but never really branched outside of my comfort zone. I am typically more of a Twitter-user, receiving news, entertainment, politics, etc. updates from that social media site, so roaming the depths of YouTube for similar stories was a different take for me. One thing I really liked about the YouTube community was the idea that it is content created by someone like me. Sure, large news outlets and industry leaders use the site for promotional and advertising purposes, but I appreciated that integrated mix of user-generated content and widely-known larger sources. YouTube also really highlights that diversity aspect of society that I value in my everyday media consumption. I look for varying perspectives, differing opinions, similar ideas, interesting points of view, and more when I read the news, so that was something YouTube has that several others platforms do not.

YouTube is an online community “created by you, for you” so heavily based in user-generated content. That leaves thoughts and opinions raw, real, and unfiltered, much like the demographic makeup of the community’s users (https://digiday.com/media/demographics-youtube-5-charts/). YouTube has uncountable amounts of content from how-to videos, to dating advice, to politics, to foreign language classes and back again. I think this makes it extremely diverse, in users and consumers, varying in age, race, gender, sexual orientation, and more. From my observations, there is not one type of person more inclined to watch a YouTube video more than another. However, I imagine specific content areas have more or less of one demographic tuning in, like makeup tutorials or NFL Fantasy Football advice videos.

I have always been a visual learner. I enjoy looking at things, be it pictures, videos, etc., so YouTube felt like my comfort zone. I enjoyed gaining my media through a visual means, other than reading words on a screen or listening without a picture to hold my gaze. YouTube kind of serves as that happy medium between the three, allowing users to pick one of the three senses or all of the above. So I definitely found that interesting and enticing on the site’s behalf, it can appeal to several (if not all) types of consumers.

Like I said before, I did see several larger organizations creating a presence on YouTube, like ABCNews, CNN, Buzzfeed, etc. The videos posted on those channels were definitely more produced, staged, and shortened to a perfect length for quick, media consumption. They were also constructed more for promotional, marketing and advertising purposes, unlike the unfiltered, web-cam in one’s room, type background and setup of the everyday YouTube creator. This shift is YouTube video culture initially turned me off the site, but now I understand the societal need for it. Quick, visual, and constantly changing information for all types of consumers.

Circa 2017, I found YouTube to be a very creative and diverse media platform, one that I genuinely enjoy and would encourage others to engage with. The long list of categories and various types of content is both inspiring and enticing; you never know what you are going to get, but there’s millions of different opportunities to get something incredible. I like that it is relatable. It is made by people like me and you, for people like me and you have the option to captain your own ship, be in control of who you follow, what you watch, and can connect interpersonally with those individuals on a different level. YouTube encourages uniqueness and creativity and that provides for such varying arrays of diversity to really be highlighted on this media platform.

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Creative Investigation Final Draft

Dalton Arnold- Creative Investigation Final Draft

‘Terrence Malick films are philosophical, creating a so called ‘Heideggerian Cinema’, as well as Malick being the Auteur of his films’

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” [3] This quote from the Book of Job is featured at the start of The Tree of Life, showing Malick’s philosophical and theological ends alreay, and could be seen as what many people view Terrence Malick as; God. Malick is seen as an ‘incredibly influential filmmaker’ [30] and a ‘reclusive genius’ [8] who has laid the foundations for arthouse cinema which has ‘elevated him to a godlike status’ [8], using his magical filming mind to weave his past of studying philosophy into his films and creating movies unlike anything else in cinema that could be seen to make him what Francois Truffaut called the ‘true auteur’ [30] of his films. The philosophical nature of Malick’s films is not something that should be questioned. Malick studied philosophy with Stanley Cavell at Harvard before abandoning a doctorate on Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. He wrote an introduction to Heidegger’s ‘Vom Wessen Des Grundes’ [14] translating it into the ‘authoritative translation’ [9] the ‘Essence of Reasons’ [14]. He was a philosopher before becoming a filmmaker, explaining the philosophical nature of his films and the vast ‘moments of poetry’ [29] and his reclusive nature will help me answer the final question of whether Terrence Malick is an auteur as well as analysing Terrence Malick’s style and thematic preoccupations. Annotated Sources used for this creative investigation [1] Badlands (1973) [Film] Colorado, USA: Terrence Malick [2] The Thin Red Line (1998) [Film] USA: Terrence Malick [3] The Tree of Life (2011) [Film] Texas, USA: Terrence Malick -[4] A film magazine focusing on the examination of perspective and life in film. This volume focused on Terrence Malick’s perspective that he weaves into his films and is discussed in an academic way. Another very important source to much of my findings with more detail focused on Badlands.- Baskin, John (2010) The Perspective of Terrence Malick. The Point Magazine, Available Online: https://thepointmag.com/2010/criticism/the-perspective-of-terrence-malick - [5]One of the key French figures in film of all time with his critical works and association with Auteur theory to provide theory in auteur as well as philosophy side so important source because of use in all sections.- Bazin, A. (1967–71). What is cinema? Vol. 1 & 2 (Hugh Gray, Trans., Ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005 -[6] Another review by Bradshaw to compare his views against ones previously made by him on Malick. He writes about one of Malicks newest films used to show Malick in the present and is a credible source.- Bradshaw, Peter (2015) Knight of Cups review: Malick’s back! With the least interesting spiritual crisis in history. The Guardian, 8 February. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/08/knight-of-cups-review-film-terrence-malick-christian-bale -[7] Review in highly esteemed newspaper by a famous film critic that looks at a film that I am not focused on but used to compare findings with my films and provides very useful quotes on Malick as an auteur.- Bradshaw, Peter (2012) To the Wonder – Review. The Guardian, 2 September. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/sep/02/to-the-wonder-review -[8] Article on Malick as recluse which is important to Malick’s personality as a filmmaker and used to link with auteur well. From a god source of a high status newspaper and useful because of niche subject matter providing specific points. Blackall, Luke (2011) The secret life of Terrence Malick. The Independent, May 23. Available Online: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-secret-life-of-terrence-malick-2288183.html -[9] Academic work on the ontology of film with only brief mention of Malick but an important point that is used to provide good academic examples on Malick creating philosophy in his films as well as Cavell working with Malick at university to show context and credibility.- Cavell, S. (1979). The world viewed : reflections on the ontology of film. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. Pages: 14-18 -[10] Journal entry in famous and unique magazine on film and philosophy with credible points from a high regarded academic despite not being used frequently in the essay. Critchley, S. (2002) Calm - On Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Film-Philosophy, Vol 6, No. 38. Available Online:  http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n48critchley -[11] Review by arguably the most famous movie critic that provides his insight on Malick and his magnum opus The tree of life. Very credible source that will be integral to critical views on Malick- Ebert, Roger(2011) The Tree of Life- Review. RogerEbert.com, 2 June. Available Online: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-tree-of-life-2011 -[12] -A film magazine branched from a film website that aims t present a library of cinema and ideas towards films, this volume focused on Terrence Malick and his links to philosopher Martin Heidegger in his films. This article was an integral source to my first two focal points and mainly the primary source of The thin red line providing detailed insight and expert knowledge to back it up.- Furstenau, Marc and MacAvoy, Leslie, (2003), Terrence Malick’s Heideggerian Cinema. Vertigo Magazine, vol 2 issue 5, Available Online: https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/volume-2-issue-5-summer-2003/terrence-malick-s-heideggerian-cinema/ -[13] -Only two quotes used but integral to the Philosophy part of investigation with direct quotes from the philosopher focused on to provide the foundations of my points in context and good credibility.- Heidegger, M. (1927) Being and time. Translated from German by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, Oxford : Blackwell, 1962. Pages 51-54 -[14] -Malick wrote the translation of this book that while only using one quote from it is important due to the dual significance of Malicks translation and Heidegger as the main point of part of the essay.- Heidegger, M. (1969) Essence of being: The essence of reasons : a bilingual edition, incorporating the German text of “Vom Wesen des Grunde. Trasnlated from German by Terrence Malick. Evanston. Northwestern University Press. -[15] -Academic article by a BFI journalist who gives a small review to Malicks newest film to show Malick in the present to compare with focal films. Useful points however will be used for one point only- James, Nick(2016) Voyage of Time: Lifes Journey- First Look. BFI Film Forever Sight and Sound Magazine, 23 September. Available Online: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/festivals/venice-2016/voyage-time-life-s-journey-first-look -[16] -Online film magazine that is very highly regarded and features a wide array of articles on all subjects in film adding to its uniqueness and the credibility as well as good points make this article useful despite only being used rarely in the essay. Kiang, J (2013) 10 Actors Cut From Terrence Malick Films & How They Reacted. Indiewire, April 10. Available Online: http://www.indiewire.com/2013/04/10-actors-cut-from-terrence-malick-films-how-they-reacted-99568/ -[17]-Academic source providing only one quote but a very important one to provide necessary film theory that can be applied to auteur section.-  Kipen, D. 2006. The Schreiber Theory; A Radical Rewrite of American Film History. Melville House. Page 38 -[18] Kray, Peter (2012) “The Tree of Life” A Philosophical Film Review. Scholodarity. 10 February. Available Online: http://www.scholardarity.com/?p=1361 -[19]-Academic arts blog focusing on films in an artistic and deeper sense. This particular post provided good detail on the auteur focal area of my research, however not used very prominently.- Landers, Henry (2013) Auteur Theory: Terrence Malick. Newspapers and Celluloid, 22 May. Available Online: https://henrylanders.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/auteur-theory-terrence-malick/ -[20] Leddy, Tom (2016) Malick’s Badlands as an example for Philosophy and Film. Aesthetics Today. 1 April. Available Online: http://aestheticstoday.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/malicks-badlands-as-example-for.html -[21]-Academic article from a well-esteemed newspaper charting Malick’s creative process that give the director style and meaning in his films. This article was used scarcely however. – Newton, Michael (2011) Terrence Malick: Act of Creation. The Guardian, July 1. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jul/01/terrence-malick-films-tree-life -[22]-A video interview with famous filmmakers Christopher Nolan and David Fincher on Malick and specifically The tree of life. Gives useful knowledge from inside the film industry.- Nolan, C (2011) The Tree of Life Featurette with Christopher Nolan and David Fincher [Online] Available At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVUXDn6hCY4 -[23]-Blog focusing on film reviews in a general analysis of film while also providing a philosophical approach to them. Provided some valued points on Badlands as a philosophical exercise, used a few times- Runyon, Christopher (2013) The Terrence Malick Retrospective: Badlands. Movie Mezzanine, March 22. Available Online: http://moviemezzanine.com/the-terrence-malick-retrospective-badlands/ -[24]-Article focusing on an interview with main star of The Tree of Life , Brad Pitt which garners hs view on Malick as a filmmaker and how Malicks perception on the world is incorporated in his films as seen from a first person point of view. Useful article to show highly regarded stars views on Malick and his technique to provide valid evidence to my points. – Rose, Steve(2011) Brad Pitt talks about Terrence Malick and The Tree of Life. The Guardian, 30 June. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jun/30/brad-pitt-interview-terrence-malick -[25]-Film review on Tree of Life that provides a comparison on views from the main, high status newspapers used in my essay and back up points on the tree of life and Malick from an auteur point of view.- Sandhu, S (2011) The Tree Of Life, review. The Telegraph, July 7. Available Online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8623873/The-Tree-Of-Life-review.html -[26]-Sarris was one of the most influential film theorist who developed his own version of the auteur theory and so this source was integral to my research so I could apply it to Malick and his films as well as comparing it with other auteur theories so it is used very regularly in the final section of my investigation essay. – Sarris, A (1962) Notes on Auteur Theory in 1962. Film Culture. -[27] -Using the Guardian again for credibility and their detailed opinion bank on Malick and the review provides integral points on auteur with good status to them.- Solomons, Jason(2011) The Tree of Life – Review. The Guardian, 10 July. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jul/10/tree-of-life-terrence-malick-review -[28] – Academic dissertation, used for a few quotes on The Thin Red Line and the way Malick presents Heidegger’s views in The Thin Red Line-. Sinnerbrink, Robert (2006) A Heideggerian Cinema?: On Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Pdf Dissertation. Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Available Online: http://www.film-philosophy.com/2006v10n3/sinnerbrink.pdf -[29]- small article on one of Malick’s new films to get some needed context for reference on Malicks development. – Ide, Wendy (2016). Knight of Cups review – nudging into self-parody. The Guardian. 8 May. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/08/knight-of-cups-review-terrence-malick-christian-bale -[30] Academic book on essential film theory used to bolster essay with film theory quotes from likes of Francois Truffaut regarding Auteur theory, and then some useful quotes from theorists on Malick’s work to help link to Auteur theory and wrap up a conclusion- Osbourne, R (2014) Film Theory for Beginners, London, Zidane Press, Page 126/127

How Malick creates a Philosophy through Film Terrence Malick ‘prefers to talk through his films’ [8] and ‘Each of Malick’s films presents a conversation or debate between ‘what he suggests is the dominant Western worldview and a competing perspective’. [4] This conversation he presents is the fundamental nature of Philosophy and this competing perspective is Malicks communication of his worldview, his philosophy. In Badlands (1973) [1], Malicks debut feature we see these opposing worldviews in play for the first time with the films protagonists Kit and Holly. Kit, a soon to be laid off garbage man who will ‘try anything once’ [1] and his naïve girlfriend Holly, who constantly remarks that Kit ‘looks just like James Dean’ [1] offer many mid-century clichés as well-being seemingly oblivious to all authority. This anti-establishment attitude is more prevalent throughout the whole film as the couple go on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands showing no remorse or acknowledgment for their victims or the nature around them. Even the policemen who arrest Kit seem oblivious to the horror of Kits actions, with one calling him ‘quite an individual’ [1] as they are almost in awe of Kit. However, the audience never seems to share the same opinions on Kit as the policemen, this is Malick’s worldview coming through. Malick’s aim as the filmmaker is ‘to educate the human eye to see like his camera does’ [4] and here that is to see the horror in Kit and Holly’s actions as through the camera we see the beauty of the world and nature that Kit and Holly seemingly ignore through his use of close-up shots of plants and animals and extravagant wide angled long shots showing the Badlands that surround the characters in the magic hour light.  (Insert photo of Kit with gun in Sunset) With Malick’s films ‘They insist upon a critical response. In this they perform their first and perhaps most traditional philosophical function, as they propose an argument and initiate a dialogue’ [12] and Badlands in presenting these binary opposites of views on the world and initiating a kind of dialogue that Malick wants the audience to have with themselves, Badlands (1973) becomes a philosophical film. ‘Welsh: In this world a man, himself, is nothing. And there ain’t no world but this one. Witt: You’re wrong there Top. I’ve seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination. Welsh: Well, then you seen things I never will. We’re livin’ in a world that’s blowin’ itself to hell as fast as everybody can arrange it. In a situation like that all a man can do is shut his eyes and let nothing touch him. Look out for himself’ [2]. This quote from Malick’s film The Thin Red Line (1998) [2] , made after his 20 year hiatus after Days of Heaven (1976), we see the common philosophical structure again.  Welsh’s character represents the ‘dominant western worldview’ [4], showing man’s cynicism of the world and believing there is no meaning to the world as well as being a selfish being who does not care for nature and just looks out for themselves just like Kit and Holly in Badlands (1973) [1].  As Jim Cavaziels character goes AWOL we see the world he has found, a small island paradise shown through various intercutting of wide angled long shots that help us see how the island is secluded and free from warfare, and then through medium close up’s of private Witt and the tribal people as he immerses himself into their culture back played with a beautifully harmonious score of the tribal people singing to further communicate their togetherness and love for each other and their world. (see appendix 1) We also see this purer perception from Malick through Witt once again at the end of the movie ‘Witt's openness to the world-his calm embrace of finitude through visual and tactile releasement-shows that even in the most devastating capacity for destruction there might also be the possibility of ethical transformation’ [28] When he volunteers to go down the river to protect fellow soldiers from being caught off guard by the Japanese, presenting his selfless love for company C who represent humans as a whole and Witt as our saviour as he saves them with his seeming sacrifice.  Again, he shows beautiful images of the world around these soldiers from the vast expanse of the jungle to the to the gorgeous oceans to again show our ignorance to the beautiful world we live in as its ‘blowing itself to hell’ [2] by our blood thirsty addiction to conflict and we see this with In one particular scene in which the American soldiers, attempting to take a hill occupied by the Japanese, are being wounded all around Malick cuts to a close-up shot of a crippled young bird crawling along the ground, unable to fly representing the destructive power of our ignorance on nature. (see appendix 1) However, the film features more binary oppositions than just this of ignorance and selfless love. We see the theme of loyalty through the conflict between Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) and Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) over Staros’ loyalty towards the men under his command and Tall’s willingness to let men die, as seen with the exchange of dialogue where Tall says to Staros ‘You are just not strong fibred enough’ over Staros’ reluctance to send his men to their death and Tall regarding him as not strong enough for War because he will not accept the sacrifice of soldiers. Malick uses Tall as the embodiment of the western world’s ignorance to the lives of soldiers, and Staros as the opposite, the embodiment of how we should be, which is taking care of our fellow humans, not allowing them to die. we see the theme of love explored in Private Bell's (Ben Chaplin) devotion to, and ultimate betrayal by, his wife Marty (Miranda Otto). We see his love in the way he refers to his wife when saying ‘I was a prisoner and you set me free’ showing how her love for him and his adoration to her showed him a new life, but then we see the betrayal through cross cutting editing of scenes where Bell and his wife are together to depth of fied shots where Bell os in the foreground and his fellow soldiers in the background, reading a letter from Marty of how she has left him, and Bell being in focus while everything that surrounds him being out of focus shows the loneliness her rejection has subjected him to.(see appendix 1) Bells love towards his wife is the right way to live according to Malick as it sets the soul free just as Ben describes it, however Bell’s wife’s actions show how people are ignorant to love and abuse it, with the cross cutting showing how she has gone from Ben to another man so easily, betraying this sacred thing which is love. These binary oppositions Malick presents again are there to communicate the ignorance and selfishness of man that Malick wants humans to avoid but recognises is the dominant way we love in Captain Tall and Bell’s wife Marty, but he also presents the goodness of Humans as ‘The camera approximates the perspective of the man who asks the right questions. The extent to which these questions have been ignored is demonstrated by the war itself’ [4] through Captain Staros and Private Ben. The Tree of Life (2011) [3] presents opposing views in a far more theological and philosophical way way. Malick presents the two parents as ‘archetypal polar opposites’ [27]. Pitt’s father character is presented as taking the way of ‘nature’, believing we should be selfish and ruthless as he poses the question, why should humans be good when there is such vast cruelty in nature?; this is the ‘dominant western worldview’[4] seen in the parallel editing of medium close ups that track The father and his children, each time hitting them encouraging a violent response as he believes violent retaliation is necessary to survive in the world (see appendix 1), and Malick commentating on the nihilism of modern humans in the face of the world. Chastain’s mother character however is presented as taking the way of ‘Grace’ (God), believing that we should lead our lives full of compassion and love for the world and be selfless, just as God would want, linking to Philosophy of Religion. These two philosophical views on how we should life are ‘The idea that the purpose of life is one of universal compassion is given serious consideration, as is its contrasting position, the idea that one cannot live life morally or one will be trampled’ [18]. Once again Malick leaves us contemplating these worldviews he presents, and we watch them play out as we see them take a toll on the parents’ young boys, most specifically how their views impact on Shaun Penn’s character as ‘Penn's character pinballs towards a cryptic ending’. [27] Terrence Malick in The Tree of Life follows suit from his other films in that ‘shadows are always ready to fall across these circumscribed paradises. Violence, moral corruption, war, colonial conquest, all play their part in locking us outside the gates of Eden’ [21] However with The Tree of Life, his worldview, the view of Chastain’s character that we should live the life of ‘Grace’ rises up and allows the characters to enter this Garden of Eden as her character Mrs O’Brien says, ‘love smiles through everything’. We see this at the end where Penn’s character, the mother and the father enter this vast expense of land filled with people, shown with long shots of Penns character succumbing to this new reality (see appendix 1), where people are now together in one place, meaning their views on the world are too and can live harmoniously. This is where the characters realise that ‘compassion is not simply for the weak ready for extinction but a vital part of life’ [18] and in accepting this, they and the audience have finally entered their own garden of Eden. This is Malick being at his most philosophical, presenting us with these contrasting philosophical worldviews, provoking a communication between them and finally ‘The film suggests an absolute divergence between those who choose the way of nature and those who choose the way of grace’ [21] by showing how letting God in and accepting his path of love and compassion can allow entry to a Garden of Eden, thus making The Tree of Life (2011) [3] a philosophical and theological film.

Are Malick’s films an instance of a ‘Heideggerian cinema’? Stanley Cavell whom Malick studied with at Harvard states in his book, the World Viewed that ‘Malick has made visible certain key Heideggrian themes, particularly that of the being of beings and the presence of beings’ [9]. Martin Heidegger’s work focused on a branch of philosophy called ‘Phenomenology’. In his first book that was widely regarded his magnum opus ‘Being and Time’ [13], he says “Thus "phenomenology" means - to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself’ [13], or in simpler terms, Phenomenology in essence is the study of structures as experienced from our own first-person view. As phenomenology is all about Humans or as Heidegger called us ‘Dasien’ [13] seeing or ‘presencing’ [13] things in our world, and the ‘dominant western worldview’ [4] and Malick’s purer perception that he uses in the three films are ways of us seeing the world, then has he has not simply created a ‘Heideggerian cinema’ already through these visions? This would be too easy. Malick’s films however can also be seen as a ‘Heideggerian Cinema’ in a more specific sense.  ‘Metaphysical views are visions of the world which, according to Heidegger, become so sedimented that we forget they are representations or interpretations’ [12] and in Malicks films ‘The situation of Malick’s protagonists is comparable to that of the contemporary moviegoer who forgets his life for two hours or has it, in rare cases, transformed.’[4] Malick makes his movies with metaphysical views interweaved into them, and in producing movies where the protagonists forget their world, just as Holly in Badlands (1973) [1] does, shown in her monologue where she says ‘sometimes I wish I could fall asleep and be taken off to some ‘magical land’[1] , he has created a Heideggerian cinema because we the audience and even the protagonists themselves forget they are representations. The question may be raised to counter this that Holly does not forget her world because she only wishes she was in this ‘magical land’ [1] and she isn’t actually there, however Malick wants us to look closer using the contrasting view to the world he presents and see that Holly is in fact in this metaphorical ‘magical land’ [1] she dreams of, she herself just cannot realise this, and the ‘magical land’ is shown with through the long shot of Kit setting the balloon off into the sky and house in the woods Kit has built for them both , as these images are almost fairy-tale like. (see appendix 2). So Holly not being aware of this means she has had her life transformed, thus meaning Malick has created a Metaphysical view in Badlands, and made it in a way that the audience does not escape from the realism Malick is presenting, so he creates a film that is part of ‘Heideggerian cinema’. These metaphysical visions that make Badlands (1973) [1] an instance of Heideggerian cinema is present in his other works. ‘The Thin Red Line offers at once a vision of the world and a profound reflection upon the process of producing such visions’[12] and this is through the fact that the soldiers in the film are forced to make the islands they fight on their home and a world torn apart by war is the only world they see; as Penns Walsh puts it, ‘there ain’t no world but this one’ [2] to the soldiers, and this is further emphasised through the wide-angled tracking shot at the end of the movie of white Christian crosses in the ground of the island, where countless soldiers who have been killed have to remain forever. It is also shown through George Clooney’s character addressing the soldiers saying ‘it’s going to be a long time before we get home’ [2], meaning after this battle there will be another battle, and then another in this all-encompassing war that dominate the soldiers’ lives. Heidegger would however bring forth the argument that while Malick’s films do present these Metaphysical visions well and show a way of seeing the phenomena in our world, films are still mere representations of a world, place and people, set up to be filmed and so cannot be considered true when looking at our world. French film theorist Andre Bazin, who was one of the writers of the world famous movie magazine Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950’s alongside Francois Truffaut and many others, commentated on the philosophical level of films. In short Bazin said that The photographic image is “a kind of decal or transfer”[5] and so “The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from the conditions of time and space that govern it” [5], ratifying what has been said regarding Malick’s films and their links to phenomena and realism . We can see this in The Tree of Life (2011) [3] in scenes that seem spontaneously filmed while carrying a weight of meaning such as the several pan shots of the boys playing in streets and a particular depth of field shot of the boys in the background laughing and playing attempting to hit a can. We also see scenes inside the house where Chastain plays with the boys and camera follows them, showing close-ups of her and the children, almost as if you really are watching a moment in time, one of a real family in Texas in the 1960’s (see appendix 2). Brad Pitt affirms this by says on making the film ‘we're free to roam wherever we want to roam’ [24]. Each day would start with ‘Malick presenting the actors with a few pages of notes he'd written, often Kerouac-style, stream-of-consciousness musings (the child actors were barely told anything), then they would go and see where it took them.’ [24] backing up this point that he shoots his films with realism through actor improvisation as ‘Malick's camera does not so much point its lens at an event and film it, as become an observer in the scene, moving in the space, catching the perspective of a participant’ [21] and thus a moment in time that is still real and true. To back this up, while we have said Heidegger and other thinkers were critical of film because of it being a ‘decal’ [5], his films present this realism films and as Simon Critchley puts it, things are ‘not enchanted in Malick’s universe, they simply are, and we are things too’ [10] , they are just as Bazin said, free from ‘space and time’ [5]. So Malick has made a Heideggerian cinema through making his films with a philosophical realism that can live on, while communicating key messages about humans as beings and our relationship with the world. Is Malick the auteur of his films? These philosophical positions Malick has made present in his films can be a contribution to the question of whether Terrence Malick is a true auteur in filmmaking. Film theorist Andrew Sarris wrote about Auteur theory and in his work, Notes on Auteur theory (1962) [26] he set out guidelines regarding what makes a director an auteur; they must ‘at least be a good director’ [26], have a ‘distinguishable personality’ [26] and their films must have an ‘interior meaning’ [26]. Terrence Malick would definitely be regarded a good director as his work is hailed by critics, receiving reviews regarding his films that rival them with the best as seen with critic Roger Ebert who placed The Tree of Life (2011)[3] in his top 10 films of all time and Badlands (1973)[1] his first feature was number ‘67’ on the directors’ poll on Sight and Sound’s directors’ top 100 films, he has also been nominated for three academy awards including two best director Oscars for The Thin Red Line [2] and The Tree of Life [3] and won the Palme D’Or at the 2011 Cannes film festival for The Tree of Life [3]. This shows he is also regarded by other filmmakers as a good director thus the first point of Sarris’ criterion is satisfied. The second part of the criterion is that an auteur must have a ‘distinguishable personality’ [26] and Sarris develops this more saying that ‘the way a film looks and moves should have some relationship to the way a director thinks and feels’ [26]. Malick is seen by many to exhibit a personality, he is known to be ‘the most famous recluse of all time’ [29] and according to the independent, the word reclusive is ‘an understatement’ [8] and this shows that in the world of film he is known by this reclusive personality of his that is unrivalled by other filmmakers. We have also seen that Malick’s films have a connection with the way he thinks as he has 'transformed his knowledge of Heidegger in cinematic terms' and uses his philosophy to communicate with his audience as he interlaces it into his films core. Sarris delves even deeper into what makes a filmmaker an auteur in this second point and that is that they should ‘exhibit certain recurring characteristics of style’ [26] and François Truffaut’s works on auteur theory also affirm this point, saying to be auteur a director needs their own ‘distinctive style’ [30]. Malick would pass this with flying colours as fellow filmmaker Christopher Nolan says ‘his work is immediately recognisable’ [22] contributing to making him ‘one of the greats’ [22]. This can be seen with the Long shots of the landscapes around his protagonists as in Badlands (1973) [1] with the shots of the vast expanses of Badlands behind Holly and Kit and in The Thin Red Line (1998) [2] with the long shots of the beaches and forests the soldiers are fighting on. We can also garner a portfolio of nature shots in Malick’s films, from the varying habitats on earth and in space, to animals and plants that represent our co-existence with other species in the world and or small place in it.(see appendix 3). Critic Peter Bradshaw expands on this listing the stylistic traits Malick imposes over his body of work from ‘whispered narrative, a surging orchestral score, looming, circling camerawork to accompany wordless outdoor memory sequences which often take place suffused in sunsets and lens flare’ [7] (see appendix 3) which can be seen in all of his films and lens flare is a bi-product of filming in the ‘magic hour’ which is a stylistic trait of Malick to make his films seem more dreamlike, just like in The Tree of Life with Jessica Chastain’s character being represented as an ‘earthbound angel’ [32] with the magic hour light backlighting the shot resulting her being filmed in an ‘angelic way’ [32]. (see appendix 3). Further stylistic areas of Malick’s films can be seen with lots of use of close-ups which are used frequently in all his films to capture the emotion of the characters and make the viewer feel more intimately close with them. This mix of personality and style means then that Malick satisfies the second part of Sarris’ criterion. Terrence Malick’s style also leads us to the third and ‘ultimate premise’ [26] of the auteur, the interior meaning created by ‘the tension between a director’s personality and his material’ [26]. As we know Malick studied philosophy and Malick’s films have a connection with the way he thinks as he has 'transformed his knowledge of Heidegger in cinematic terms' [12] and uses his philosophy to communicate with his audience as he interlaces it into his films core and the way he directs is in an almost spontaneous way to get the desired phenomenological effect in his films. This is Malick using his style and personality to create meaning in the most artistic way and this ‘interior meaning’ [26] takes many forms. He takes the theological approach, showing how humans are small an insignificant in the vast universe and this is done in all his films with extreme long shots that establish the characters as merely specs in the dominant backdrop and in his new film Voyage of Time(2016), it is seen that Malick creates this interior meaning again ‘since the film’s depiction of a voyage through time as measured in billions of years seeks to diminish human arrogance to its proper place in the larger scheme of things – the blink of an eye.’ [15]. This is perhaps at its most prevalent in The Tree of Life (2011)[3] with the long shots of the dinosaurs through CGI special effects, walking the earth and experie3ncing death, just as we do, and this is to further show how the earth wasn’t and isn’t just a planet for Humans but for all life, and we are only a small part of a time period of billions of years, just like the dinosaurs were(see appendix 3). These nature and planetary cosmos scenes ‘represent a macrocosmic view of life in which human beings are imbedded in a much bigger picture of ecological relationships’ [18] and as Brad Pitt says on the theological meaning and spiritual themes Malick creates, ‘there is a greater power than anything we understand, and for me the film is about that’ [24] showing we are not supreme, we are small and futile, it is God who is omnibenevolent Malick uses more thematic preoccupations in his films and death is widespread in my focal films. In Badlands (1973) death is present in a very literal way through the killing spree Holly and Kit go on, however we also see the theme of death in smaller ways, from Holly reminiscing on how her ‘fish got sick’ [1] and she had to throw it out and we see a close up of the fish obviously dying, gasping for breath as she just carelessly casts it out. Kit then shows his ignorance to animals in a long shot of him stood on a cow and kicking it and we see that he clearly does not care for what is around him (see appendix 3). In The Thin Red Line (1998) [2] death is present through the whole film as Malick shows the effect of war on humans and nature, and the most powerful scene of death is when Woody Harrelson’s character jumps on his own grenade to protect his fellow soldiers and we see him slowly dying. Finally in The Tree of Life, Death is a prominent theme and motif as the films narrative is molded by the death of one of the sons shown through the feature of death in several of the films monologues, and we also see how death of one of the sons’ friends contributed to the loss of innocence of Penns character. So it is clear he creates ‘interior meaning’ [26] in his films and so has satisfied this final part of Sarris’ criterion and under this is thus the auteur of his films. Auteur theory however is now seen by some to be outdated; David Kipen is one of these people and he uses the ‘Schreiber Theory’ [17] to argue against Sarris’ and other theorist’s views on auteur theory. ‘A filmgoer seeking out pictures written by, say, Eric Roth or Charlie Kauffman won’t always see a masterpiece, but he’ll see fewer clunkers than he would following even a brilliant director like John Boorman, or an intelligent actor like Jeff Goldblum. It’s all a matter of being on the fastest horse, instead of the most highly touted or the prettiest’ [17]. Kipen is in essence arguing that a director is not the auteur of their films, the screenwriter is it is essentially the screenwriter who births the concept, thus it is them who knows how the film should look and flow and will make the film more efficiently. However, Terrence Malick is not just the director of his films but is normally the screenwriter also. This then means Kipen’s argument gives ammunition to Malick being the auteur of his films because he gives everything that Sarris requires for a director to be considered the auteur of his films and because he is also the screenwriter, that means his films are now even more his own vision and he gains more control from writing the script which is seen to be an important part of being an auteur and Malick ‘should be applauded for developing his own distinctive cinematic vernacular’. [29] Conclusion- Malick’s authorial style has developed the ‘European arthouse mould’ [25] and while being a ‘recessive director who has made only five features in four decades’, [25] he his portfolio of films and certainly the focal films adhere to Sarris’ criterion to being an auteur. Film theorist Peter Wollen states of an auteur that ‘all their films exhibit “the same thematic preoccupations, the same recurring motifs and incidents, the same visual style and tempo’ [20] which backs up Sarris, and again show Malicks film definitely satisfy these points through the ‘many gorgeous, often abstract images’ [15] and the ‘visual poetry and metaphysical yearning’ [25] in his movies.  Terrence Malick is also ‘the last film-maker – and perhaps the last artist of any kind – to be so clearly in love with paradisal innocence’ [21] showing his individuality and recurring motifs and of course, while trying to shy away from the limelight, he has a personality that is controversially distinctive as he is known to be the greatest recluse of all time and he also exhibits large amounts of control on his films, so despite the number of regular collaborators such as Jack Fisk and Emmanuel Lubezki which could weaken Malick’s claim as film is a collaborative process, It is Malick’s vision who guides the film and it is he who has created his own ‘cinematic vernacular’ [29] through the philosophical messages and values in all his films (which also disproves David Kipen’s argument) and the recurring style that he controls. While his new films have faded critically with Peter Bradshaw stating that his work is ‘stagnating into mannerism, cliche and self-parody’ [6] they also exhibit the recurring characteristics of his earlier films ‘as in Knight of Cups (2015), Bradshaw says ‘There are moments of visual brilliance here, moments of reverence and even grandeur. He is always distinctive, and anything he does must be of interest’ which shows Malick is still the auteur of his films. Concluding on what we started with, evidently Malick has made his films philosophical with the questions he raises in all his films, trying to show Humans the ‘right’ way to live as well as presenting a ‘tension between world and earth’ that is ever present. While it can be argued you can never truly create a ‘Heideggerian Cinema’ due to Cinema always being a representation of the world and this scepticism being ever present, his films come as close as any art form ever will at emanating the great thinkers views. Philosophy will always be present in art and thus philosophy becomes a version of poetry, and with his films ‘Malick has assumed the role of the poet-philosopher, putting the cinema to poetic and philosophical ends, revealing, through the use of poetic, evocative imagery, the relation between Being and the medium of film’ [12] thus becoming the mediator between Philosophy as a science, and Film as art, creating a ‘Heideggerian cinema’.

Appendix 1: The Thin Red Line, Witts Paradise

The Thin Red Line, Death of The Bird-

The Thin Red Line, Private Bell and Marty-

The Tree of Life, Garden of Eden-

Appendix 2: Badlands, ‘Magical Land’-

The Tree of Life, Family Realism-

Appendix 3 -Extreme Long Shots/Magic Hour  from all three films

Nature/Humans diminished from all three films-