Blogpost #11
I found Hito Steyerl’s piece quite interesting, especially in the context of current discussions around NFTs and cryptocurrency. I have a hard time understanding NFTs, and this article hinted at a potential reason for its necessity –– the importance of identifying and defining the “original.” Privatizing an image, or delineating an original, creates a hierarchy of class surrounding one image. As Steyerl states, “poor images are poor because they are not assigned any value within the class society of images” (6). I don’t know if I entirely agree with the premise of the article –– I think poor images are powerful and necessary in the democratization of art. The author states that, “The circulation of poor images feeds into...capitalist media assembly lines” (8); I understand the sentiment but I wonder if one can argue the opposite, that poor images are rebelling against capitalism and profit and promoting access to all. The bourgeois appropriation of art as a commodity concerns me, and I can’t help but wonder if that is what NFTs are doing. On the other hand, I understand the necessity for ownership as a means of combating capitalist exploitation. But I also want to see art continue to be more accessible. The New Inquiry piece is a good insight into how technology is making the personal political, the seemingly private public. We share photos of objects and people via social media for ourselves, but they feed into a much larger system which is harming groups of individuals. One of its last lines says, “We no longer look at images–images look at us. They no longer simply represent things, but actively intervene in everyday life.” This forced me to think about how art’s role has changed in the advent of technology, and how it’s not only a mirror to society now but a force for change.Â