It is interesting how a thought, an idea, or a comment can fundamentally change everything you think about something or someone.

It can be the smallest thing, or a huge career-changing statement. But one day you can think one thing about someone, something, or an issue, and it all suddenly changes.

If you could cast your mind back to a couple of months when Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. This was a huge thing for the Nobel committee to do, considering the relative amount of time Obama has spent in the Oval Office. It caused a huge controversy. People seemed to forget that the nomination process for the Nobel Prize closed only days after his inauguration, and that it is a long and complicated process to go from a “mere nomination” to holding the medal in your hands. It’s not a trivial thing to be won. I can only imagine the huge deliberation and conjecture it would have caused amongst the judges.

But I digress. I was fully of the opinion that Obama won it for the work he had done before he became President. The Nobel judges defended themselves, and said they gave him the award for the work he has done, and the work he will do.

But then…from one little comment in an article from the New York Review of Books Blog changed my understanding, and made a whole heap of sense. It said this:

“They may have tied his hands—making it harder for the President, as a Peace Prize laureate, to take military action against Iran or escalate in Afghanistan.” (full article)

This notion intrigued me from the get-go, but unfortunately no other articles I have read have picked up on it.

It is entirely possible that the decided to give him the Nobel Prize in an attempt to force Obama to think long and hard about entering or starting any “unnecessary” armed conflicts while in office.

This idea I find huge. And brilliant. Of course, a Nobel Prize cannot be revoked. Once it is awarded, that’s it.

That doesn’t matter, however. He might not be critically hamstrung by the prize, but it will always be in his mind that “I won the Nobel Peace Prize. What should I do?”

I truly love this idea, and it changed my opinion of the matter. I agree with the prize committee’s actions even more.

There have been other utterly game-changing ideas. Recently, artist Damien Hirst, the richest living artist in the world, recently came out and virtually said that his entire oeuvre has been a joke.

All his ridiculous ideas, putting a shark in a formaldehyde tank for instance, was an inside joke poking fun at the art world and art critics (to be fair, most respected art critics have always been against Hirst).

This revelation does not make me a fan of his work. But I now respect him. It seems that he may have completely killed off the huge prices his work have been attracting recently. Which, I admit, wouldn’t really matter to him as his net worth was estimated in 2008 to be just shy of US$400 million. I just find it great to see the man who has been labelled as responsible for the downfall of contemporary art admitting the jokes been on us (not that I believe him. His is just trying to extract some form of credibility). But admitting it is an genuinely intriguing thought.

I now present Exhibit C in how a thought, statement, opinion can change everything. When their first album came out, I was a fan of Wolfmother. I happily admit that.

They had been spoken about in the press as sounding like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. I don’t agree with that, but whatever, I still knew that I liked their sound. I then read an interview with Andrew Stockdale that stated that Wolfmother sound like some of these 70′s bands, to which he replied that he didn’t understand all the comparisons, because he had never listened to a Pink Floyd album in his life.

Great, I thought. That doesn’t bother me. I’m not someone that would judge someone for not having listened to a specific band (of course, many people who know me may be surprised by this).

But then…everything changed. A week later, Andrew Stockdale appeared on Rove, wearing…a Pink Floyd tshirt. At which point I thought “well, that’s it. Goodbye. You have now achieved hatred from me, Wolfmother”.

I feel vindicated by the fact that the new album is called Cosmic Egg for god sakes…and it is rubbish. But that’s an opinion for another time.

What thoughts, ideas, opinions, whatever, have completely changed what you think about something? Let me know in the comments!

Nice t-shirt.

If I spend more than half a moment staring at your chest, trying to figure out what the hell those three lines of text spell out, I’ll look like a weirdo. You’ll look at me like a creep and shuffle away whispering to your friends about me, and it’s made even worse when I need to turn around to look at your back to see the punchline. Your t-shirt is stupid, it doesn’t need to be, it can change a life.

‘Fat Guys Are Harder To Kidnap’ is a terrible shirt. If you think that shirt is funny enough that you bought it and you’re wearing it, I’m not going out of my way to talk to you, you’re an idiot. Unless the person who reads it is Jeremy Clarkson, and it gives him a brand new outlook on life.

If you don’t look at me weird, maybe you like that? You like getting the attention of people, you want them to look at your t-shirt and think “man, the person who bought that t-shirt has a great sense of humour/style, oh wow, it’s that person wearing it, they are awesome”. You egotistical prick.

Who wears a t-shirt like that? I certainly do. I love to wear a t-shirt that makes people stop and look at, or even give me a casual nod in the shopping centre. A sign of appreciation of my awesome taste. Or maybe even just something that will confuse them. I’m proud of my interests, I like the fact that you think I’m a nerd! If my t-shirt has a retro video game reference, or a science fiction reference, or even a webcomic reference on it, you know that I’m unique.

Except I’m not unique. They don’t mass produce Super Mario or Star Wars t-shirts so that they’re easily accessible to a small group of elite and unique people of which I am a member, they do it because there are countless people worldwide who want them and want to present their interests, taste, and even sense of humour.

How an article of clothing represents the inner me is really beyond my comprehension. Just because I’m guilty of being a victim of trendy t-shirts doesn’t mean that I don’t see the problem. We’re all too worried about what people think of us, even complete strangers we’ll never see again.

I don’t know your name, I don’t know where you’re from, I’m certain I’ll never ever see you again, but I know later tonight you’ll be telling someone about the interesting things that happened to you today, and hopefully I can be one of them. The imprints we leave in other peoples lives and memories is, in a sense, our own little slice of immortality. We each have our own 15 microseconds of fame, when we’re discussed by people we don’t know. Maybe I can do something memorable enough to someone that their grandchildren will talk about it, it doesn’t need to be big, it just needs to be the right kind of awesome, at the right time in their lives when they’re impressionable enough for it to make a difference.

If I can change your life I damn well hope I do, if the butterfly flapping its wings is my ‘Ice Man Says: Be Cool, Stay in School’* t-shirt to the tornado in your life that could be anything from a rousing good laugh at Friday night drinks or a pleasant memory you smile about when you most need it later in life, I’ve achieved something.

Next time I go through your checkout I will try and make you smile, and next time I buy a sandwich from you I hope my manners make your day.

Until next time… Just embrace the simple things.

*I inherited that t-shirt from a person in my life who seems to live his life by positively influencing others, even to his own detriment. This manifesto is at least partly due to the impacts, big and small, that he and this t-shirt have had on my life. Which is an embodiment of my entire point.

I know what I like. Most people that know me are aware of my strong opinions.

I’ve had countless arguments with fellow Ok, To Begin With… writers over all types of media, be it music, film, tv shows, art, whatever. But we don’t really consider it arguments, but discussions. To a third party it can look like an argument, but in general it’s all in good faith.

One ongoing discussion involves the pillar of Australian dance music that is The Presets. Me? I think they’re dreadful. I don’t see the appeal in a band who so shamelessly copies electro groups such as Daft Punk that were at their creative peak more than ten years ago. As I see it, they were a product of their time. Why would a band want to make average facsimiles of this music now?

Lots of my friends like The Presets. And that’s fair enough. I don’t, yet so many people seem to get offended when I make my opinion known. And it’s not like I don’t back up my opinion, I have my reasons.

A couple of weeks ago, my uncle’s step-mother came round for dinner. During the various conversations that arose over dinner, she asked me what I thought of Shaun Micallef’s current show Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation. Unaware that my uncle was good friends with him at university and his stepmother had taught him, I let my opinion known.

I think the show has a predictable concept, is utterly dreadful, pointless, and unfunny, and made worse by the host. I have never found Micallef slightly funny. Instead of listening to me and saying “fair enough, everyone’s entitled to their opinion”, both my uncle and his stepmother launched into a huge defence of Micallef and his show. But of course, they failed to address the reasons why I don’t like him and his show.

A similar thing happens when I get asked about movies. A common topic at the moment due to Inglorious Basterds, is Quentin Tarantino. When I’ve been asked what I think of his films, I can’t help myself. I could just say “yeah, he’s quite good, I liked Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction”. But instead I give my full opinion: he’s a hugely overrated director who has done absolutely nothing of note since 1994. Reservoir Dogs is stunning, Pulp Fiction is good but I think is idealised by so many due to its structure. Natural Born Killers was potentially a great film if Tarantino directed it himself, but Oliver Stone mangled Tarantino’s script. Everything else he’s done, I think is dreadful (*note: I am yet to see Inglorious Basterds).

Do you like Tarantino films? Great. I’m not going to stop you from watching them or try to change your opinion. All I’m doing is giving MY opinion. What’s so wrong with that?

I’m sorry, I have my opinion. Just please don’t get offended if you ask for it and don’t like it.

Image from Flickr user jontintinjordan

Think of all the classic movies. Or games. Or albums. Now try to picture those pieces of art being advertised. If you are like me, it’s very difficult. There are some texts(note, for the sake of this article, I will be referring to all instances of the medium in the literal “text”) that convey a grand picture – a masterpiece of the human mind and form – that simply cannot be advertised. Trailers won’t do the film justice. Gameplay videos just don’t inspire the gamer. Radio edit singles are a far cry from the richness embodied in the album.

Marketing is slowly devouring the soul of our creativity.

I may have given it away in my first paragraph, but this article is somewhat of a shoutout – and a proof in form – to those texts that surpass the advertising limits and create a mass-market appeal all to their own. Today, we call these texts “cult” – a derogatory term at the best of times – which is a clear indication of our society’s opinion of what the minority KNOW to be great. For instance, in 1977, a film was released to cinemas. It was in the boom summer months, where we generally have one lead film by a production studio, plus a bunch of minor, cheap backups. The film I am talking about is one of those cheap, throwaway backups. It was a film where the entire cast and crew were of the opinion that they were making a joke. It would never go anywhere. It was a flight of fancy by an unskilled screenwriter who, for some reason, managed to score a small budget. That film, in case you hadn’t guessed…

Was Star Wars. Possibly today the most recognised film brand in the Western World, Star Wars was given a measly (even for the time) $8m budget. For argument’s sake, allow me to note a few other similar films: Blues Brothers, Donnie Darko, Clerks, Slacker, Saw… All these films weren’t considered to be friendly to marketing, at least as far as the publishers saw (ed: if there really were an editor, he would punLOL right now). The fact is, the big budget production studios need to make absolutely certain that the money they spend on a film comes back to them.

I hold no grudges. At the end of the day, the job of a publisher is to finance a creative work. When we come to matters of finance, capitalist society dictates that financing something must, in the end, make a return. Which means that, in order to publish a creative work, a publisher needs to be aware of exactly how they are going to recoup their interests. This leads us to the marketers…

I’m not going to pretend marketing companies are evil corporations out to brainwash the public to the “regime” mode of thinking. Marketers simply collate, calculate, predict and report statistical trends in the ‘marketplace’ (that being, us in the majority) that they know will sell. The problem is the human factor. Statistics only prove so much, and only from a scientific standpoint. When it comes to the creative media, anything is up for grabs.

I am a teacher, pioneer and citizen of “Games”, and as such I must approach this article from a game perspective. With a little thought however, I am sure you will make the same links with your own medium of choice. There have been several genres of video game that have become all but extinct – they definitely don’t hold the popularity they once did. Genres like adventure games, space sims and turn-based strategy games were once leading the charge in game sales. Today, they barely make a blip on the charts (with a few notable exceptions). I believe the reason for this is marketing, namely that these genres are very difficult to advertise. Trailers and gameplay videos don’t appear flashy enough, screenshots and posters show graphs and text more often than not, and press releases just haven’t got the forceful impact of say, a first-person shooter. This is certainly not to say that these games are bad. You just need to be playing them to appreciate them. The only games in these genres that tend to do any well nowadays are those rebooting, based on, or continuing a once-popular franchise (Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Civilization, Freelancer, Hearts of Iron and the many independent “rogue-likes”, to name a few). Films show the same trend – the biggest takers of any given chart tend to be movies with big, flashy, exciting trailers. Album sales are more often based on the radio single. A new book only really sells big when someone bases a film on it.

It is this industry that is the cause. Publishers targeting product to the mass market. In the end it all comes back to trying to please all the people all the time. The text just gets “dumbed down”, the effect lost in a thousand compromises designed to make it appeal to more people. I remember the games industry in its relative infancy at the turn of the 90′s. There was no advertising. Games were independent affairs. A game sold through word of mouth. This is where the classics make their mark – not through mass-market themed teasers, but based on the recommendation of the human element. And no, I’m not talking about the critics. They aren’t really people.

I’m not here.

tHIS ISN’T HAPPENING

* Your regular scheduled program will return.

Don’t miss us…too much.

I love artistic concepts. Sometimes they are really simple, other times incredible in their intricacies.

Take the abstract artist Mark Rothko, who from a simple concept developed a huge body of work. After modernism took off in the visual arts world, many artists were attempting to remove one of the dimensions, depth, from their artwork. Rothko realised that no matter how much they tried, the paint itself forms a dimension on the canvas. So he decided to use watercolours to dye the canvas itself.

As a concept? Brilliant. In practise? I’ll let a piece of his work tell the story:

Before I go on, I just need to say that I really like Rothko’s artwork. His work can be amazingly beautiful in the simplicity and the limited colour palette used. However, if you were asked to describe the above image, how would you?

You’d say it looks like a couple of bands of colour.

Herein lays a problem: what’s more important, the concept or the art? Certainly, the concept can exist prior to the artwork, but can the resulting work ever be separated from the concept, once the concept is known?

Despite Rothko’s huge fame and popularity, a huge portion of people do not like his artwork. That may have something to do with the concept behind it not being as widely known as the art itself.

Once the concept behind these “bands of colours” is known, I bet everyone finds the artwork more interesting than they found it before.

But can a piece of art be less interesting than its concept? This seems to be a very fundamental question, that turns out to be very difficult to answer. To see a work of art without knowing the concept behind it could result in the viewer simply not liking it, or feeling indifferent. Seeing a work of art and knowing the concept behind it instantly makes the artwork more interesting, but not necessarily better for it.

From an amazingly interesting concept, a dull and boring piece of artwork could result. But, of course, anyone who knows the concept could no longer be objective about it, and in most cases would argue the merits of the work, explaining the concept, and thus proving that a piece of art is at least as interesting as its concept.

Only those who don’t know the concept can be objective about the quality of the artwork. But doesn’t a piece of conceptual art need the concept told in order for its merits to be judged?

I see a pattern developing here.

There was an article published by The Australian just this weekend past that tackled this same topic, but was centered mostly around the film ‘The Girlfriend Experience’. I’ve not seen this film, I probably won’t ever see this film, not because of the subject matter but simply because the concept doesn’t interest me.

I’m less interested in discussing Hollywood here. A pornographic film is classified by a governing body and rated accordingly, it shows genuine intercourse and sexual activity. But what about paintings? Or photography? Or one of the many other art mediums that aren’t filtered through a panel of people wearing high waisted pants viewing them through thick coke bottle glasses and giving their stamp of approval, or denial?

Whether it’s a self taken photograph posted online, or a professional photo shoot, there’s definitely a distinction between erotic art and softcore pornography, but this line is determined by the eyes through which they’re viewed. While a dimly lit black and white shot of a naked girl wearing nothing but lashings of leather could be considering an artistic representation of the human form to many people this same image would be considered debase and immoral.

In a post I made about a month ago about moral obligation I discussed how morality applies to the individual and their views. These are shaped mostly by upbringing and then by what is considered acceptable by a persons peer group. A lot of you might consider that perhaps what you would share with others is art, and what you wouldn’t want your friends to see you viewing, or find on your hard drive. I don’t think that’s the case. An appreciation of artistic merits is an entirely personal thing, and while you mind find the beauty in an image, the knowledge that your peer group might not doesn’t make it any less beautiful.

What the average person considers acceptable has clearly changed as time has passed. What would have been considered completely unacceptable and perverse is drastically different if you look at it in 50, 25 or even 5 year increments. The amount of flesh shown in your average deodorant advertisement today would have been secreted in the pages of a magazine carried home in an opaque bag by my parents if they indulged in such things when they were my age.

Compare if you will ‘The Last Sitting’ photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe, which at the time was definitely considered artistic and not pornographic, but they’re risque photos that said a lot about the actress and was an example of her status as a sex symbol. The same photo shoot of Lindsay Lohan, undertaken 46 years later, had not a single eyelash batted at it. It was a series of photos that were published by almost every internet and print media organization who knew who Lindsay was. It’s also fairly tame considering her reputation.

Isn’t every image art to some degree? Every painting, no matter what it depicts? Every photograph, no matter what it is of? If it’s a girl you know in a mini skirt with her legs spread in front of a car, or a famous photographer taking black and white shots of a model with delicate lighting and creative angles?

Art is what you make of it, it’s not about whether it arouses you, or whether your mum would approve. All art should excite you in some way, be it a childish sense of wonder, getting lost in a sea of colour, or a natural feeling of sexual excitement. Take every visual stimulus you can, and appreciate the art in it all, from a leaf blowing in the wind to a bead of sweat rolling down a chest.