frey

This is a response I made to this post over on WorldChanging:

The article linked to on Bt cotton (under the ‘rip-mix-and-burn’ link) isn’t really specific to genetic engineering — indeed, take out the phrase ‘genetic engineering’ from the article and what you’re left with is, in essence, “new cotton breed doesn’t live up to marketed expectations – farmers upset”.

Consider that ‘conventional’ crop breeding methods involve encouraging and/or inducing the kind of random mutations in genetic material that happen in nature anyway — in other words, indirectly engineering the genetic material. The purpose of breeding is and always has been to introduce new genetic code, be it by crossbreeding existing ‘natural’ plants to encourage ‘natural’ mutation from sunlight or the background radiation of the earth or just mistakes in the cell division process; be it inducing these mutations using uv light or x-rays or alpha/beta/gamma radiation; or be it genetic engineering.

I think there is a place for genetic engineering in a Bright Green future, but not the way it is currently being used. Most of the problems associated with genetic engineering at present are political, not scientific: they are to do with the politics of massive-scale argicultural corporations, not the science itself.

Imagine if community organisations were able to breed GE plants tailored for their specific local needs and problems, and then were able to grow these seeds organically (in the artificial fertiliser, pesticide and herbicide free sense of the word). No corporate argicultural hegemony, no terminator genes, no patents or intellectual property — just seeds to address specific local agricultural issues in specific local ways, grown in accordance with local practise and with the long-term interests of the community at large firmly in mind.

(Ironically, the main reason Big Agriculture seem to be the only folks into GE is that the process of testing and approval required by current law is such that only Big Agriculture can afford to do it; what’s more, because of the pervasive idea that GE bred crops cannot be classed as ‘organic’ (even though seed produced using GE methods can be organically grown) there are political reasons to reject GE seed. The reason some poor countries’ governments (governments, mind) have rejected GE food relief is because they don’t want to reduce the prices their own crops sell for in the markets of rich Europeans.)

For anyone interested in thinking about GE from a non-polarised perspective, I can very much recommend a book I read earlier this year called Mendel in the Kitchen (which you can read in its entirety online here, for free).

responds with drawings, paintings, words, and palpable anger to the things going on on his front door.

KERBLOG

george bush: “israel has the right to defend itself”

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Learn how McDonald’s really works. Be warned, this game is very addictive.

McVideoGame

hat tip Kakariki

So here’s something interesting I discovered in a ‘women’s magazine’ while waiting for my fish’n'chips (down at Te Aro Fish, the best fish’n'chip shop in Wellington):

It’s an ad for a male cosmetic product. Let’s look at the imagery for a second (click on the image for a bigger version).

On the left panel, you have an image of a stereotypically attractive male model. The wording says, “He think he looks damn good?”. On the right panel is a zoom-in on the area surrounding his right eye. The wording on this says, “You think he looks damn tired.” The rest of the ad is the typical quasi-scientific nonsense that is supposed to legitimise the product as being useful; notable phrases in it include “Signs of fatigue, dull complexion and tired features? Help him!” and down the bottom (not included in the above image) a special male-inclusive version of the company’s motto: “they’re worth it too.”

The obvious target for this ad is women. They are, after all, the people who read women’s magazines; the text is directed at some imaginary woman who is supposed to help ‘him’ (friend or lover, but presumably friend) to look better.

But advertisers aren’t stupid. They know that men read women’s magazines too. So let’s look at this from a male perspective, imagining we are a male reader who chances upon this ad. On the left panel you’re shown an image of the kind of idealised youthful masculine attractiveness that as a man you’re supposed to aspire to (without, of course, ever acknowledging any such aspiration — to do so would be ‘unmanly’). This man is attractive, there’s no mistaking that. By the standards that we as men are supposed (not) to have internalised, he does indeed ‘look damn good.’

Having reached this conclusion, that he looks damn good, latent homophobia aside, the text on the panel throws this whole understanding of idealised male attractiveness upside down — and with it, our comfort. Suppose that I as a man can look at this picture and identify myself as an attractive male through it, as I am supposed to be able to do in the kind of unspoken untalked about way with which we men seem to have to deal with these body image issues. Having become comfortable, I have my comfort ripped out from under me by the text. “He thinks he looks damn good?” becomes “You think you look damn good?”, spoken by a female voice, who knows that not only are you just like all the other men, but that this manifests most clearly in the fact that you’re stupid; because we men are stupid, especially when it comes to things like appearance. “I think you look damn tired.” You unattractive idiot.

So if you happen to be a guy, and you’re a little bit insecure about your self-image, and you’re a little bit insecure about whether you’re even supposed to have a self-image to feel insecure about, then these images and text will press upon you an even deeper sense of insecurity. Perhaps the reason I’m single/I never get laid/my last partner left me/my current partner is thinking of leaving me is because she can see things about me that I don’t even notice, because I don’t understand how this appearance thingy works anyway. I’m an unattractive idiot. These people claim to be able to “help him” (that’s me) deal with “signs of fatigue, dull complexion and tired features”, whatever they might be. Obviously the (female) reader knows what these mean. I don’t. I should buy this product so whatever these things are, they might help me with them.

–

This is all based on my initial reaction three days ago to coming across this image. Even now, and it was there before but the shock of seeing this has made it worse, there’s a tiny nagging corner of my brain that wonders whether I as a man shouldn’t be buying and using these products after all. Even though I actively disbelieve in the power of cosmetics, it’s there in the corner. I’m well informed by feminist theory, with a high degree of self-confidence, and a certainly positive if not spectacularly so self-image; and yet I’m still getting that nagging corner of my brain effect that is the very point of all advertising.

–

So what evidence is there to support a male target reader for this ad?

First, there’s the details text. “non-greasy texture, non-sticky”. Why does the female reader care whether it’s non-greasy and non-sticky? They’re not using it. “Apply in the morning and/or evening over the whole face.” Again, why does a female reader need to know this? “Use after shaving” — or this? “to help sooth razor burn” What would a female reader know or care or want to know about facial razor burn?

Second, there’s the packaging. This is a Manly Package. It’s square, it’s silver and orange. It’s a shiny chrome truck with hazard warnings. It looks like a spray deodorant bottle, which is familiar and friendly. It’s not a tube or (heaven forbid) a tub, which both smack of girliness.

Last, there’s the iconography. The visual metaphor for the supposed rejuvenation effects of the product is a lead-acid battery. “Visibly recharges the skin”, says the accompanying text. Your body’s a big car, your skin’s just like a car battery; it needs recharging. We can recharge it for you.

Look at that font. We’re entering the (weird and bizarre) territory of male-shaving-product graphic design here. 24H, square firm bold masculine text.

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Remember a couple of years ago, when it kind of came out that the All Blacks used moisturising cream on their hands? Suddenly it seemed OK for men to use moisturiser — because if the manliest of men, the most rugby playing beer drinking of the lot, used moisturiser, then it must be not only acceptable but even on some level the correct thing to do. Someone in the cosmetics industry was thinking, back then. Men are a little under 50% of the population. That’s a huge unexplored target market.

So you know what? Expect to see more of this. ‘They’re worth it too.’ Thanks. I appreciate the effort.

Bastards.

I’m currently reading Babylon and Beyond: The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements.

In it, I found this, by none other than John Maynard Keynes:

The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life-will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.

Interesting to see some of the truths behind what the neoliberals have to think. On the one hand, under certain conditions the idea of the free market actually makes some sense. On the other hand, neoliberal policies often work to actively undermine the very conditions that make markets function in the first place.

It’s all about what they say vs what they mean. Like building a group dedicated to opposing the Kyoto Protocol and calling it the Climate Council:

The Climate Council… is dedicated to informing policy on domestic and international climate change. It has been one of the most ardent opponents of the [Kyoto] Protocol, and on behalf of its coal and other industry members, has actively worked against most U.S. government efforts to address climate change.

(emphasis added)

In case you’re not aware, those with a commercial interest in media content (creative expression) are pushing to have DRM and copyright protection systems built in to next-gen technology. Now watch this:

If the commercial interests get their way, doing what this guy has done would be not only illegal but actually impossible: the hardware simply would not allow it to be done.

Read Free Culture. Make art that confronts IP laws head-on. Share it with Creative Commons. We need to permeate this stuff so deep into our society that any attempt to legalise it will be clearly absurd. Don’t let the fuckers win.

Performance artist Rachel Bevilacqua has lost custody of her ten-year old son after a judge saw some pictures of a (performance art related) conference she went to.

This is what can happen when you have a society hung up so deeply on sex. Those interested in exploring the ideas run off out and do what they do, believing they are free to do so. And, of course, you get a deep conservative rejection of the whole movement, and a subsequent massive social stima attached to any kinds of expressions of sexual deviance, or of even just questioning the ideas around sex itself. At this stage I wish I knew more about the history of attitudes to sexuality, especially in the late 19th century — as I understand it, they were then at a vaguely similar point in the apparently cyclic progression of societal attitudes to sex as we are at now.

The significance of this to me is that Rachel has lost custody of her child because of her art. The supposedly most free society on the planet has demonstrated that its freedom comes with limits — as of course all freedom fundamentally does.

I went last night to see Me and You and Everyone We Know, a film by Miranda July, who is also a performance artist and an amazing one at that. This film is very, very beautiful, and you should see it. It has a soundtrack by Michael Andrews who also provided the music for Donnie Darko. He appears to like lo-fi; this is Good.

Reports via Hard News of [tag]intellectual property[/tag] [tag]licensing[/tag] stupidity in Britain over here:

The Digital [tag]DJ[/tag] licence costs GBP200 + VAT per device — so if they use an iPod or similar, they could well need to pay more than once — on top of the existing public performance licence that club DJs need.

So if you use an Ipod and a CD player, or a computer and a discman, you will be required to have two licenses. What’s more, it appears not to discriminate between [tag]music[/tag] obtained legally (eg [tag]Creative Commons[/tag] licensed music like mine) via [tag]p2p[/tag] or whatever, and music obtained illegally.

Even more absurd:

… the license requires DJs to LIMIT their crossover/fades/blends to TWO SECONDS OR LESS. Screw that, what about those of us who beatmatch two (or more songs) for MINUTES at a time? Apparently, I can’t use my EQ either, or the loop function my DJ software comes with …

This is going to ensure one thing, of course: it will drive the makers of ‘real’ music underground, where they can fester and interbreed and generally be messy, nice and neatly (and deliberately) out of the public eye — because, in general, creative music happens amongst people with very little money, who can’t afford these types of licenses and will do all to avoid them. This could very well have a hidden benefit, of course. I’ve been spending quite some time with the punk/feral music crowd here in Wellington and it is becoming increasingly clear that real [tag]creativity[/tag] happens in shitty run-down flats filled with messy people where the rent is cheap and the mental states are bent (drug-driven or just by nature). It’s the misfits and the geeks that make [tag]culture[/tag]. The [tag]punk[/tag] ethic is to misfit by design, and the creative energy that comes out of it is astounding.

Interestingly, discussion of these social realities of ‘creative communities’ is all but completely absent from the literature and the rhetoric of the official bastions of culture — Creative NZ et al — although it ought to be pointed out that the PACE scheme, commonly known as ‘the artist’s dole’ is a stunning display of understanding and foresight, seeming to indicate an unvoiced understanding that this is the way things are. We do indeed live in a wonderful country.

(On the p2p tip, last week someone found this website by searching for ‘frey-disintentional.mp3′ [which I have yet to transfer from the old site to the new database, but will get on to that soon as..], which means my tracks must be spreading via p2p networks or something similar. Wonderful. Fly my pretties, fly!)

I’m reading a book at the moment called Noise: The Political Economy of Music by Jacques Attali.

… music is used and produced in the ritual in an attempt to make people forget the general [tag]violence[/tag]; in another, it is employed to make people believe in the harmony of the world; and finally, there is one in which it serves to [tag]silence[/tag], by mass-producing a deafening, syncretic kind of music, and censoring all other human noises.

Make people Forget, make them Believe, Silence them…

Pop music now is as lyrical as it has even been but it has never been more empty of reflections of the world. Listening to pop one could be brought to the belief that the worst thing that could possibly happen is for one’s boy/girlfriend to have dumped one – despite the high amount of violence floating around, in Iraq, in Israel, and in increasing amounts in Western and Westernised cities. What’s more, only the music that the radio station owners, eg Clear Channel in the United States who own 1400+ radio stations, deem to be acceptable is ever heard; and then what music is chosen is repeated and treated to a [tag]commodification[/tag] so heavy as to turn it from a piece of musical experience into a weapon of deafening.

This book was written in 1977, but check this out:

Today, in embryonic form, beyond repetition, lies freedom: more than a new music, a fourth kind of musical practice. It heralds the arrival of new social relations. Music is becoming composition.

And we now live in an era where anyone with a computer and an internet connection can share their music with the whole world for free, and where these people are doing so to the extent that there is more music being made and shared now in a single year than there has been in any combination of years in the last 100 years of the history of music.

I like books like this, they give me hope. I’ve been feeling very good about my life choices at the moment, and this book just helps to reinforce that. Choosing to focus on myself as a musician, with that as my career first and foremost, is certainly proving to be the right thing to do.

ps see below? the download? see? clever, no? i wrote the php all by myself :-)

I think I’d like to say a little bit more about having a buy-nothing Christmas.

Think of it this way – by removing the occasion of gift-giving from Christmas I normalised the day, but in so doing demonstrated to myself how every day can be just like Christmas, if I want it to be.

It was a very interesting experience – because I was spending time with family, lots of people around me (including my parents and grandparents) went through phases of giving and receiving things. While these things were going on I sat by the sidelines and watched. I watched the emotions that passed over their faces — the looks of expectation and satisfaction, and disappointment and disillusion as well — and the interactions between them and the people who’d given them the present. And I realised as I was doing so that all of those emotions I wasn’t experiencing, and this gave me a kind of a sense of focussing of time – a kind of a detachment maybe? I don’t know.

But what ended up happening was that I noticed more the people I was with — the extended families I don’t normally spend much time with, as well as the immediate family members that I do spend some amount of time with (I’m remain quite close to both of my parents). It was an unusual experience in all, unusual in a good way. It has taken a number of years for the idea to actually sink in to my parents’ heads, so that they will actually not buy me presents, and don’t expect any in return. But it was worth the effort, and I heartily recommend it.

Gift-giving as a ritual has, I believe, lost much of its meaning. Possessions used to mean something, back when we couldn’t get the things that we can get now as cheaply or as readily as we can these days: to receive even the simplest gift was to get something special. Thing is, $50 isn’t really that much money if you have a job, and $50 can get you some pretty impressive possessions. You don’t even need someone to go and buy them for you — just give the salesperson $50 and they’ll give a present, just because. I suppose that’s just a fancy way of saying that it’s the thought that counts, but I’m a bit of a thinker and I like to make my brain jump through hoops.