How does William Burroghs relate...?

jtk · Mar 29, 2020

(…) We can spread false news using recordings broadcast during peak hours. Or introduce into the recorded speech of a politician sputters and stupid noises. By blurring the tracks, literally and figuratively, we will not only short-circuit information networks, but also demonstrate how the media system manipulates us.

A subversion course, by a master of counterculture.
Electronic Evolution 1
William S. Burroughs

Is nostalgic photography (beautiful scenery beautiful children, beautiful men/women etc) subversive or is it mainstream, easy?

Noisegate · Apr 15, 2020

I'm not sure if I am smart enough for this conversation but I'll bite. It seems to me the question is faulted as the answer is not "either/or" but rather "maybe"? Any art form (regardless of intent) can be manipulated to suit one's agenda (including Mr. Burroughs'). A picture of a flower is just that...unless you think otherwise.

Paul Howell · Apr 15, 2020

Nothing new here, read up on how Herst started, and I mean started, the Spanish American War and how the media turned American Public opinion against the Germans in WWI. Not that the German were saints they were not, but nowhere as bad as painted in the press. At time when many could not read, the music industry, in New York, Tin Pan Alley, song writers would read the morning news write a emotionally laden song, by evening new music was printed and performed in the bars. For a time things got better, Hearst and Pulitzer 2 of worst yellow new paper chains put money into developing and teaching ethical standards of journalism. The new wave of citizen reporters are for the most part untrained, many don't understand the difference between opinion and news, and sadly many don't care. In my thinking not new, only more of it, and we as consumers want news that agrees with our current belief system.

Noisegate · Apr 15, 2020

Well said.

Alan Edward Klein · Apr 15, 2020

Paul Howell said:
Nothing new here, read up on how Herst started, and I mean started, the Spanish American War and how the media turned American Public opinion against the Germans in WWI. Not that the German were saints they were not, but nowhere as bad as painted in the press. At time when many could not read, the music industry, in New York, Tin Pan Alley, song writers would read the morning news write a emotionally laden song, by evening new music was printed and performed in the bars. For a time things got better, Hearst and Pulitzer 2 of worst yellow new paper chains put money into developing and teaching ethical standards of journalism. The new wave of citizen reporters are for the most part untrained, many don't understand the difference between opinion and news, and sadly many don't care. In my thinking not new, only more of it, and we as consumers want news that agrees with our current belief system.

Not sure what you mean by citizen reporters. But today, professionally trained reporters are more talking heads of political commentary than journalists. If they had ethical compasses when they started, it is soon lost to their huge paychecks. Of course, photography has always been used for propaganda since dead bodies were moved around for best effect in early Civil War pictures. But the people have caught on. It's why media gets such bad ratings when it comes to trust. We know they're playing games with us although often we don;t care if we like what they say. So everyone splits up and watches or reads the outlets they agree with. And the outlets bias the news and photos for their customers. The whole thing is insidious. But we deserve what we get because we go along with the nonsense.

Noisegate · Apr 15, 2020

Insidious indeed. Propaganda, confirmation bias and a bit of narcism is a bad mix. Unfortunately, it is a powerful machine that strokes the ego and short of some form of mass enlightenment, there is no breaking that chain.

Paul Howell · Apr 15, 2020

A citizen reported is generally thought to be someone on the scene of news event who has a smart phone and reports, sometime to a news channel sometimes to a blog. When blogging there is often no editorial control or oversight. And your are right, the cable news channels figured out that talking about the news is more profitable than covering the news. In the old days broadcast news was very careful not to editorialize. In 1968 Walter Cronkite was roundly criticized when on the air he offered his opinion that the was in Southeast Asia was at best a stalemate, contributed to Johnson deciding not to run for reelection. In those days each network had a talk show like Meet the Press, that aired on Sunday, when the talking heads talked about the week's news. Another difference was that in the day the new division were not expected to made a profit, news was a community service. Today it's 24/7 and a rating war.

There remains many professionally trained reporters who are not talking heads, we just don't pay them much attention, they report and write objective news. Although no longer a paper and print paper the Christian Science Monitor, it's news room was and is solid, editorial it leans Republican, never showed in new coverage. Mary Baker Eddy founded the CSM to counter the horrible yellow journalism, it has earned 7 Pulitzers and a number of other awards .

removed account4 · Apr 15, 2020

Noisegate said:
A picture of a flower is just that...unless you think otherwise.

I am not sure about that, as Renée said ce n'est une pipe...

Alan Edward Klein said:
But today, professionally trained reporters are more talking heads of political commentary than journalists

. some, yes, but it is easy to paint a broad brush. it really depends .. some are Harvard and Oxford scholars, but others were even sued in court and got off the hook because they do not report on the news but entertain, and are not liable for what they say.
WHB was a smart guy. with regards the the question, it all depends who is looking at it... every person who looks has their own set of values and needs to be taken into account. like photographs of dead people after a bomb goes off in a busy marketplace, to some it is good work to others it is the horrors of war.

Alan Edward Klein · Apr 15, 2020

Paul Howell said:
A citizen reported is generally thought to be someone on the scene of news event who has a smart phone and reports, sometime to a news channel sometimes to a blog. When blogging there is often no editorial control or oversight. And your are right, the cable news channels figured out that talking about the news is more profitable than covering the news. In the old days broadcast news was very careful not to editorialize. In 1968 Walter Cronkite was roundly criticized when on the air he offered his opinion that the was in Southeast Asia was at best a stalemate, contributed to Johnson deciding not to run for reelection. In those days each network had a talk show like Meet the Press, that aired on Sunday, when the talking heads talked about the week's news. Another difference was that in the day the new division were not expected to made a profit, news was a community service. Today it's 24/7 and a rating war.

There remains many professionally trained reporters who are not talking heads, we just don't pay them much attention, they report and write objective news. Although no longer a paper and print paper the Christian Science Monitor, it's news room was and is solid, editorial it leans Republican, never showed in new coverage. Mary Baker Eddy founded the CSM to counter the horrible yellow journalism, it has earned 7 Pulitzers and a number of other awards .

Paul, I found Reuters gives news mainly in a reportorial way.

awty · Apr 16, 2020

Everything is beautiful with the right drugs.

removed account4 · Apr 16, 2020

awty said:
Everything is beautiful with the right drugs.

you must be watching "drugstore cowboy".
just don't leave the hat on the bed !

Paul Howell · Apr 16, 2020

Alan Edward Klein said:
Paul, I found Reuters gives news mainly in a reportorial way.

I worked for Reuters as a PJ in the 80s, very high standards.

jtk · Apr 16, 2020

jnantz said:
I am not sure about that, as Renée said ce n'est une pipe...
. some, yes, but it is easy to paint a broad brush. it really depends .. some are Harvard and Oxford scholars, but others were even sued in court and got off the hook because they do not report on the news but entertain, and are not liable for what they say.
WHB was a smart guy. with regards the the question, it all depends who is looking at it... every person who looks has their own set of values and needs to be taken into account. like photographs of dead people after a bomb goes off in a busy marketplace, to some it is good work to others it is the horrors of war.

Wrong to "take them all into account." Many monsters among us, often "leading us". "Us" includes a lot of bad guys. "It depends" means wiggle.

Noisegate · Apr 16, 2020

jnantz said:
ce n'est une pipe

Semantics but I see your point.

guangong · Apr 16, 2020

awty said:
Everything is beautiful with the right drugs.

Burroughs would certainly agree with that!

removed account4 · Apr 16, 2020

jtk said:
Wrong to "take them all into account." Many monsters among us, often "leading us". "Us" includes a lot of bad guys. "It depends" means wiggle.

the thing is everyone but "us" is them. no matter how one looks at it each person is surrounded by "others"
so its just life. there have always been tricksters and fake news, I mean for years the only newspaper I got delivered to my home was The Onion !
and I am a fan of mr wiggles on Sesame Street

jtk · Apr 16, 2020

jnantz said:
the thing is everyone but "us" is them. no matter how one looks at it each person is surrounded by "others"
so its just life. there have always been tricksters and fake news, I mean for years the only newspaper I got delivered to my home was The Onion !
and I am a fan of mr wiggles on Sesame Street

Look out for individual villains and the people who vote for "them."

removed account4 · Apr 16, 2020

LOL. we are all villains.. that is the thing. im not sure if it is a problem or not .. but its been that way probably forever...

John Koehrer · Apr 16, 2020

citizen reporter= 1st amendment auditors or sovereign citizen on youtube.

Alan Edward Klein · Apr 16, 2020

Paul Howell said:
I worked for Reuters as a PJ in the 80s, very high standards.

That's great. There's so much bias and spin today in news both in copy and photos. Even if a photographer takes a straight picture, how it's presented and captioned by the editor can give it a whole different point of view.

runswithsizzers · Apr 17, 2020

@Paul Howell, I once shared a bottle of Scotch whisky with Walter Cronkite. He visited my hometown to speak at the University, and he stayed in a room at an inn where my wife was the chef.

After Walter was gone, the housekeepers found a half empty pint bottle of Johnnie Walker Black left behind in his room. I like to remember it as half full.

The beer-drinking housekeepers had no use for Scotch, so my wife brought the bottle home, and I was privileged to finish what Walter did not.

And that’s the way it was.

I was just asking my wife at the breakfast table this morning if there is any news anchor working today who is as trustworthy as Walter Cronkite was, or the others of his generation. We decided the main qualifications for being a successful news broadcaster today is being able to plug your networks latest movie release with a straight face, and not getting caught with your hand up someone's skirt.

Burroughs' ideas about subverting information networks and exposing the media systems which manipulate us make less sense today. Is it fair to say a media system is manipulating me if I choose to listen to only those media outlets which tell me only what I want to hear? We not only tolerate being mislead, we demand it.

Culture and counterculture, mainstream and subversive - these dichotomies are probably oversimplifications which ignore many different points of view.

But to answer your question @jtk, I suspect nostalgic photos are subversive within the walls of liberal arts universities and in the fine art world, but are mainstream just about everywhere else.

jtk · Apr 21, 2020

runswithsizzers said:
@Paul Howell, I once shared a bottle of Scotch whisky with Walter Cronkite. He visited my hometown to speak at the University, and he stayed in a room at an inn where my wife was the chef.

After Walter was gone, the housekeepers found a half empty pint bottle of Johnnie Walker Black left behind in his room. I like to remember it as half full.

The beer-drinking housekeepers had no use for Scotch, so my wife brought the bottle home, and I was privileged to finish what Walter did not.

And that’s the way it was.

I was just asking my wife at the breakfast table this morning if there is any news anchor working today who is as trustworthy as Walter Cronkite was, or the others of his generation. We decided the main qualifications for being a successful news broadcaster today is being able to plug your networks latest movie release with a straight face, and not getting caught with your hand up someone's skirt.

Burroughs' ideas about subverting information networks and exposing the media systems which manipulate us make less sense today. Is it fair to say a media system is manipulating me if I choose to listen to only those media outlets which tell me only what I want to hear? We not only tolerate being mislead, we demand it.

Culture and counterculture, mainstream and subversive - these dichotomies are probably oversimplifications which ignore many different points of view.

But to answer your question @jtk, I suspect nostalgic photos are subversive within the walls of liberal arts universities and in the fine art world, but are mainstream just about everywhere else.

Brilliant stuff . Years ago I asked myself what I had been doing in a long series. Maybe 20 6x9. Nice prints involving all sorts of "subjects." Didn't smoke dope back then, but did sit za zen. I realized that I'd been drawn to bits of specular light, and burning lightbulbs themselves. Easier to do with a Leica 2f than something that does the metering for me.

How does William Burroghs relate...?

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