Bubblegum Club

Tag: internet

  • Taxan – About That ‘Kite Life’

    Taxan – About That ‘Kite Life’

    Hip Hop is often seen as a music of aggression and raw materialism, but the culture has always had a more abstract, psychedelic side. When I was a teenager, artists like Kool Keith, MF Doom or even Outkast transported their fans to other realms of consciousness. And in the last decade the music has only become more surreal, with the rise of icons like Young Thug and the wild experimentation being conducted on the internet. Just look at a recent hit like Trippie Redd’s ‘Dark Knight Dummo‘, a lysergic sprawl of weird beats and the chorus “I don’t know what planet I’m on”.

    Other planets are a key interest of Joburg based rapper Taxan Greezy, whose nom de plume speaks to his fascination with celestial beings. The cover art for his new single ‘Kite Life’, even features an iconic little green man. The track (produced by deKiller’Clown) features the rapper, who also records under the name ET, dropping excited wordplay over fragmented beats. ‘Kite Life’ is a song which appears to hover on the verge of chaos, but soon reveals its internal logic. For Taxan “everything is placed randomly but comes together perfectly”. And the collaboration with deKiller’Clown is another chance to spotlight the work of their collective, Indiegoat Clan.

    Taxan’s main focus is on pushing this experimental moment in hip hop forward, promising to “never stick to one subgenre or make music for current trends” while “trying to send a good message and switch it up”. The song tells a story of self-realisation: “we should always follow our hearts, don’t let anyone clip your wings and when they do remind them you are still high like a kite! Don’t follow any structures or systems created by society. Create your own ideology of what’s perfect for you. Lastly, don’t do anything for the hype or the likes. ‘Cause it’s momentary but kite life is a frequency that lasts forever. Basically it means stops letting fear of society hold you back, flourish”.

    Taxan also has a music video for the song in the works, with an upcoming solo tape named Chronicles of Xannith to follow. With their free thinking approach, both he and the Indiegoat Clan are poised to fly to the highest reaches of SA rap.

  • Future 76 // In dealing with the colonial wound

    Future 76 // In dealing with the colonial wound

    Coloniality describes the hidden process of erasure, devaluation, and disavowing of certain human beings, ways of thinking, ways of living, and of doing in the world – that is, coloniality as a process of inventing identifications – then for identification to be decolonial it needs to be articulated as “des-identification” and “re-identification, which means it is a process of delinking

    This statement by Walter Mignolo during a 2014 interview with Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández describes the pervasive nature of coloniality. Certain parallels can be drawn between the tragic events of June 16th, 1976 and the recent Fallist Movement. These historical moments have enacted  ruptures of resistance. Recognizing moments of erasure is crucial to redefining historical narratives and addressing systemic disparities of power. However, ‘the voice’ of youth is not merely a homogenized entity. Issues of representation require a nuanced and considered approach – allowing passage to spaces that have been previously inaccessible. Within the context of contemporary art in South Africa, opportunities for self-representation and exploration are often scarce.

    It is in response to this, that Bubblegum Club has created an annual micro-residency to cultivate the talent of young artists. A group of four womxn have been selected for this years programme – to participate in a series of workshops, close conversation and ultimately exhibit a new body of work at the end of June. The programme has been conceptually framed around decolonial options – to tentatively consider and critique this notion beyond the buzzword.

    Jemma Rose, a self-identified visual activist and Gemini, uses her camera to capture daily realities. She also uses it as a mutual point of contact –  a device to generate encounters with people. Photographic work is in part a family tradition, it has always had an element of familiarity to it, as both her father and grandfather have engaged with the medium.

    Through her work she often works with themes of queerness and queer identity as well as drawing attention to mental health issues. Jemma notes that there are some performative qualities to her photographic work and usually focuses on using her images to convey a message relevant to her experiences. She is interested in locating herself and her work within a larger context based on her personal subjectivities.

    “I initially thought of ‘decolonisation’ in relation to breaking things down. I’m starting to realize that it’s much more than that. There are so many things behind it that you have to unravel…masculinity, heteronormativity and sexism are also all part of it. You need to slowly start unraveling it so that you can see the bigger picture.”

    This sentiment echoed by Mignolo “Patriarchy and racism are two pillars of Eurocentric knowing, sensing, and believing. These pillars sustain a structure of knowledge.” (2014). Thus through untangling the history of colonization, racisim and the patriarchy must also be addressed.

    Boipelo Khunou is currently in her final year of Fine Arts at Wits. “It’s been an interesting journey trying to find out what this so-called-fine-art-world is – what it means to be making art and making work.” This process can often be dissolusioning, especially once you realise how the elements of capital and nepotism are entertwined in the system.

    As a multi-diciplinary artist, Boipelo focuses her practice on photography, print and digital media. Thematically she works through ideas of personal power. “I use to reflect about the things that I experience. Experience is one of the most important parts of my work.” Through her work she investigates the kinds of spaces it is possible to find and claim power. She describes how oftentimes it’s within the walls of the institution that power is forcibly relinquished and autonomy is lost.

    “I didn’t know anything about decolonization until Fees Must Fall.” During the movement, the concept gained an immense amount of traction. Pedigogical systems and western epistemology within the university and beyond were challenged. “After the protests, so many people I know went through this weird depression because they realized that institutions have so much power, but what does that mean for people who want to dedicate their lives to decolonial practices?.”

    “The interesting thing is to actually see how you can put decolonization into practice. You can do all the readings, go to the talks, go to all these places that advocate for it, but what does it mean to practice it every day? I think that it is a very complex thing, it’s something that challenges me. You realise that there are so many aspects of your being and how you operate in life that you need to figure out how to prevent institutions and conditioned ideas to creep back into your life – it’s a constant battle.”

    Natalie Paneng is a 21-year-old artist and student. Her background in set design gives her a unique application of her use of space. Her work is often located virtually as she explores what it means to engage with the internet as a black womxn. The mode in which she does this is often through the use of alter egos. Hello Nice is a character she created on youtube and utilizes the ‘vape wave’ aesthetic.

    Recently Natalie created a zine called Internet Babies, it chronicals the profiles of five girls: TrendyToffy @107_, Black Linux otherwise known as the Mother of Malware, Silverlining CPU, Fuchsia Raspberry Pi and Coco Techno Butter. It explores their relationship to digital space and how they’re the “fiber of the internet.”

    She decribes how, “trying to find myself is like the decolonization of myself. Learning how to push those boundries and be more radical as well as owning the need for decolonization and acknowledging that it’s going to have to start with me.”

    Tash Brown is a young painter who approaches the concept of White Suburbia as well as investigating her place and participation within that space. While working through the lens of decolonization she describes how “white suburbia becomes a distortion of reality”, one which is also often still racially segregated. Her distorted paintings are often a grotesque depiction of the suburbs.

    As a white artist, she is critical of her own voice. Noting that, “it’s a time and a space in South Africa where black artists should be prioritized. So I guess I’ve struggled to find myself relevance in the art world, but through the critique of my own cultural issues and the problematics is a way that I can approach it, without having my voice crowding out other voices.”

    Credits:

    Photography & Styling: Jamal Nxedlana

    Makeup: Orli Meiri

    Photography and styling assistant: Lebogang Ramfate
  • We are data mines

    We are data mines

    Brands, research institutes and related companies are mining our own species for data. The everyday human is consciously and unconsciously being used as an instrument in the branding and information machine, reproducing a “consensual hallucination” in which data may be visualised, heard and felt (Stone 1991: unknown page). Stone uses this term to refer to virtual reality, however it seems easily applicable to our current state of existence.

    The kinds of brands we wear say something about who we are, making our purchases identity signifiers and constructors of specific kinds of bodies. The placement of brands on bodies by wearers becomes a source of information. They become social, cultural and economic indicators.

    Combined with this, our behaviour, interactions, the content we produce, the calls we make and texts we send add to our position as data mines. The body and the mind continue to be framed as independent operators with aspects that can be isolated for closer inspection, in the name of better customer experience or getting to know what the consumer wants, often before we even know what we want.

    Even the devices we use to engage with the virtual are produced by the interfaces and programs designed by brands, curating specific experiences and imagined futures. People often take these devices and applications and construct their own uses for them, sometimes redirecting their intended purpose, but always limited by the parameters set out in code and hardware.

    Companies are using location data, watching where and how we conduct ourselves. Brands no longer need to interact with our physical presence to collect this information. The coded you is all that matters, and this is the data that is increasingly being mined by companies to predict trends and create campaigns. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal is a recent moment that highlights the reality of this, affecting 87 million users.

    An image of you already exists through tags, internet searches, information uploaded on apps and GPS locations. Our digital footprints and the traces we leave in virtual space are being woven together by brands, resulting in a frightening, generic yet familiar reflection of ourselves being presented back to us. How is it that adverts that pop up online are able to be connected to the conversation I had with a friend over the phone? Is this coded, simulated version of me that is constructed through my digital footprint infiltrating my consciousness to tell future me what I should purchase and how I should interact?

    The body and the mind create data, and the way in which this data is mined and the way in which this information is used is threatening the future of the biological human body. The boundaries between technology and nature continue to collapse, and the information from the body is being used to find ways to correct its imperfections and fragilities, removing its nature from its future. Info about the mind is preserved to keep some form of humanity, while trying to create artificial bodies that can house this information.

    “The illusion will be so powerful you won’t be able to tell what’s real and what’s not” – Steve Williams

    Stone (1991) mentioned that it is interesting that at a time when the last of the “real world” anthropological field sites are disappearing, a new kind of field opened up. That of the online field – a space where meeting face-to-face has mutated definitions of “meet” and “face” (1991: unknown page). She highlights how these spaces have sped up the collapsing of the boundaries between nature and technology, biology and the machine, the natural and the artificial, as explained by posthuman theorists. These spaces are part of new social forms which she describes as virtual systems (Stone 1991: unknown page).

    Stone presents an example of the power of these coded spaces and the new forms of interaction they have engendered through the story of Julie. Julie was an older disabled woman at a online conference in New York in 1985 who operated her computer with a headstick. The personality she projected online was huge, creating computer-mediated connections with people online who viewed her as a friend to confide in about intimate information. Here, her disability was invisible and irrelevant. Years after the online conference participants found out that Julie did not exist. Turns out “she” was a middle aged male psychiatrist who had spent weeks creating a believable persona. Accidentally starting up a conversation with a woman who mistook him for a woman when logged on to the conference, he was entranced by the vulnerability, complexity and openness that these women expressed online. Once the real life truth behind Julie was exposed, the women who had confided in her expressed various levels of anger and hurt from this trickery. While this story comes across as a triggering and chaotic episode of MTV’s Catfish, it points to a dimension outside of the transformed nature of deceit, ethics and risk. This dimension is the beginning of an un-embodied existence.

    Stone’s paper Will the real body please stand up (1991), among other discussions, highlights how the internet, virtual reality and machines have mutated concepts like distance, inside/outside, and even the physical body, emphasising how these concepts are increasingly taking on “new and frequently disturbing meanings”. The story reveals how the coded persona can take on a life of its own, creating new forms of interaction within this virtual dispensation. What is more striking is how this demonstrates how the discursive and visual dynamics of these digitally constructed spaces make grounding a person in a physical human body meaningless (Stone 1991). If interaction and relationships can form without the necessity of the human body, and the fact that all that we do and all that we are is treated as data, then the idea of existing without the biological human body does not seem like such a far-fetched idea.

    A life produced. A life un-embodied.

    “If anything can be ‘produced’ then it can no longer be accepted as a fact of nature” (Stone 1991: unknown page).

    From the construction of personas and interactions mediated by computers to being viewed as data, all of this connects to the idea presented by transhumanists – the idea that the mind can exist and function properly independent of the human body (Bostrom 2003). Transhumanists cling dearly to this idea of substrate-independence. This arises from framing the mind as information that can be uploaded and transferred between hosts provided that they have the computational power to do this. This reference to “mental states [being able to] supervene on any of a broad class of physical substrates” has been adopted by biomedical and technological researchers and developers. Overtime there have been companies and institutes gearing towards the creation of computational structures and processes for artificial “bodies” that will be able to host the conscious experiences of the mind.

    The context within which these developments take place are that of environmental destruction, disease, wanting to live longer and the desire to see how far we can push science and technology.

    Reflections on the ways in which we have accelerated negative environmental scenarios, combined with desires to live longer and eliminate diseases and genetic “malfunctions”, has led to biotechnologists, geneticists, biochemists and businessmen using these visions of a dystopian future to brand risky enhancements, artificial bodies, and their ideas for a new phase in humanity as beneficial, necessary and inevitable. Geneticist and businessman Craig Venter is well-known for mapping the first human genome in 2000, for his synthetic genome experiments as well as for emphasising how we must manipulate our genes in order to survive. He has recently taken it upon himself to decode death, believing that he is able to discover diseases dormant in seemingly healthy individuals. People can pay for these genetic tests at Human Longevity, where Venter is the executive chairman and head of scientific strategy. This health firm aims to stay ahead of illness and aging, and is described by Venter as a company that is a “good detective…making discoveries, not diagnoses”. Again we see how data collection is conveniently marketed as a necessary preemptive measure, but with genetic manipulation the end goal – reconstructing the very blueprint of the biological human body.

    Venter is not the only one looking to edit and rewrite the human genome, with researchers discovering CRISPR Cas9, a programmable modular complex that can be directed to target and cut specified DNA sequences, allowing for the possibility of repurposing different kinds of cells, editing the genome.

    The above are painted as positive mutations, either masking the companies backing this research, or presenting the companies as good fairies. These enhancements and adjustments are branded in the same way one would brand products, with an emphasis on how they can benefit people now and how they should be viewed as investments for the future.

    Taking this a step further, there have been predictions that the earth will be uninhabitable for humans and most other life forms in their current state by the year 2045. David Russel Schilling wrote in a 2016 article that “The only hope for humans to survive is to create robots that don’t need oxygen or fresh water to survive. Over the next three decades, technology will likely allow robots and the human mind to merge”. With this prediction, groups of humans who are able to afford these procedures will live in a post human era.

    The 2045 Strategic Social Initiative has put together a manifesto and videos, highlighting the need for these artificial bodies and the transferring of human consciousness, framing this as an improvement on human life.

    “People will make independent decisions about the extension of their lives and the possibilities for personal development in a new body after the resources of the biological body have been exhausted…Using a neural-interface humans will be able to operate several bodies of various forms and sizes remotely”

    This quote demonstrates a kind of cybernetic immortality, which is visualised and being funded by businessmen such as Russia’s Dmitry Itskov.  Here we see agency being used as a branding tool, pointing to the possibility of curating ones own experiences through these “bodies”. We may soon have to imagine a life where we choose the service provider of our artificial tool to experience the world, whether this be a computer, a body that attempts to mimic the human body as we know it today or some other kind of extended, produced body. It could be as simple as a paying for a cellphone contract today.

    It is the year 2060. The chronological destination for the new humanity. We have managed to figure out a way to unfreeze and bring back to life those who chose cryogenic freezing. Research teams have developed multiple models that can be used as portable and moveable bodies for those who wish to experience the world through those of their ancestors. AI creatures are our friends and everything is downloadable, uploadable and transferrable, including our very personas. The use of the word human now references the second last being on the well-known evolutionary diagram. Looking for a body is like creating a Sim, with less emphasis on hair, eyes, or skin but on computational ability, processing power and minimal disruptions.

    The dystopian future is being used as a branding tool, justifying the use of people today and possible artificial bodies of the future as data mines. These artificial bodies will still be operated through the parameters set out by the companies that design and develop them, continuing the thread that we can be used as data mines.

    Considering that this research is being conducted within a specific social, cultural and geopolitical moment, these technologies will carry traces of how we frame ideas related to  betterment, enhancement and enjoyable ways to live in the world established today. More specifically, they will preserve the agendas of the companies and research institutes developing these technologies today, and the lineage they will create in this future.

    Regardless of how transhumanists try to frame our future selves, it cannot escape from the fact that researchers funded by companies are the ones who will propel us into this human-engineered phase of evolution. When reading between the lines, this is a kind of escapism. An escape from disease, age, death, politics and other fragilities that come with the current human existence. It is about making these constructed fantasies more than an experience with an Oculus, but one in which we live. A hyperreal, consensual hallucination that is built on data to be collated and uploaded for a transhuman future.

    References

    Bostrom, N. (2003). “Are you living in a computer simulation?”

    “Cybernetic Immortality”: How to live forever as a robot

    Debord, G. (1967). The Society of the Spectacle

    Facebook scandal hit ’87 million users’

    Genome Pioneer Craig Venter is trying to decode death

    Stone, A. R. (1991), “Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?” in Cyberspace: First Steps. (ed.) Benedikt, M.

    The Way to Survive in 2045 May Be In Artificial Bodies

    What if we could rewrite the human genome?

    With Privacy Changes, Instagram Upsets Influencer Economy

    Credits

    Concept & Research Paper: Christa Dee

    Photography: Jamal Nxedlana & Lex Trickett

    Creative Direction: Jamal Nxedlana

    MUA: Orli Oh 

    3D rendering: Lex Trickett

    Product Design: Chloe Hugo Hamman

    Research Assistant: Marcia Elizabeth

  • Internet Censorship // Undermining the democratization of information

    Internet Censorship // Undermining the democratization of information

    “To the past, or to the future. To an age when thought is free. From the Age of Big Brother, from the Age of the Thought Police, from a dead man – greetings!”

    ― George Orwell, 1984

    The modern digital technology of the internet has been an integral element in the democratization of knowledge – eliminating barriers of access, resulting in the proliferation of new ideas beyond borders. The speed at which content and information can be shared is vastly more instantaneous than ever before. Social media has in many ways provided platforms for those previously voiceless and disenfranchised.

    The controversial Films and Publications Amendment Bill, also known as the “Internet Censorship Bill”, was passed by the National Assembly earlier this month. The votes stood at 189 in favour, 35 against, with no abstentions. Its official mandate is to protect children from being exposed to disturbing or harmful media content and curb hate speech. However, the extent of its jurisdiction appears to reach beyond that, including into your smartphone.

    Those opposing the Bill have voiced concerns over the vague and broad terminology used in the piece of legislature. They argue that it is an infringement on article 16 of the constitution, which outlines freedom of expression as, “a. freedom of the press and other media; freedom to receive or impart information or ideas; freedom of artistic creativity; and academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.”

    The Film and Publication Board (FPB) would also be able to intervene in the jurisdiction of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). Initial critics of the Bill included MultiChoice, eNCA, eTV, Right2Know, Media Monitoring Africa, the SOS Coalition, the South African National Editors Forum, the National Association of Broadcasters, Google and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as it will undoubtably have lasting effects on the industry.

    The Bill also gives provisions to the FPB to block online content in South Africa. This is extended to “user-generated content” – including media posted to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media services used by individuals. Essentially allowing the government to monitor and restrict your social media, defining what sanctioned content may be shared and disseminated.

    South Africa has a long and dark history with censorship. During Apartheid the government attempted to contain media – aligning it to the political ideology. The Publications Act of 1974 provided the Nationalist party the power to censor movies, plays, books, and other entertainment – framing the perception of ideas to uphold white supremacy and systemic racism.

    Media creates a space in which certain views, opinions and notions of representations are normalized. This becomes problematic when only a singular narrative is being presented as ‘true’ without any further contestation or room for debate. In these instances, subjective information is used to influence public opinion as a means to promote a particular agenda. Restrictions on free speech hamper critical thinking and an engagement with a varied spectrum of opinions. It is also worth asking who censorship protects and what the costs of defying it will be.

  • The Difference in Tweeting

    The digital age has shaped and re-shaped various aspects of the human experience. With the internet came access to vast amounts of data, online shopping, app creation and social media platforms to name but a fraction of the elements that define our existence. Social media is at the crux of it all and is changing the way in which human beings socialize. Texting is normal, expressing your opinions about pretty much anything is allowed and sharing your life with hundreds if not thousands of followers and friends online is a day to day norm for most people. I mean are you even a person if you don’t have a social media account?

    We are living in a time where impressions of who you are as a person are often formulated before you even meet other people. Your reputation and social media presence, chosen aesthetic and personality or lack thereof is often times people’s first introduction to you as an individual. That brings me to the topic of Twitter, what makes it different from other social media platforms? Why is this network and the communication that takes place on it of value and, in terms of the conversations that are happening on this platform, why can it be regarded as distinct from its other social media counterparts?

    Twitter is the most open social network to engage with. Unlike other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook communication between yourself and other users is effortless. Unless of course, the user you wish to communicate with has a protected feed. You can speak to anyone and everyone on the network. On Facebook, messaging someone without being friends drops your messages in private folders that some users don’t even know about. Instagram, on the other hand, sends you message requests when you are not connected to an individual.

    Posts on Twitter are limited to 280 characters per post, resulting in short bursts of information circulating online. Facebook, on the other hand, has no character limit and lends itself to being a platform for storytelling and long conversations. Think about your friends’ super duper long posts that are surfacing and yet to come about how life-changing 2017 was and how much more of a winner 2018 will be. Wow, fantastic I’m so happy for you Becky. Twitter can be regarded as the track star of all social media networks and its 280 character limit catapults it into being the fastest platform on which to push information.

    On Facebook topics and posts, in other words, conversations are held longer than on Twitter. With Twitter, however, it is commonplace to post links directing your audience/followers to other sites resulting in a focus that is not just stuck on one platform. Third party content is a star on Twitter often combined with the use of hashtags acting as a tool for discovery and easy reference for other users.

    There is also real-time content vs. evergreen content with Twitter being the platform for real-time posting. Twitter is regarded by many as a news outlet because of the real-time nature of the application. Twitter users lend themselves to short frequent posts that can act as a running commentary box on various situations. Looking at influencers such as Bee Diamondhead her followers are directed to news that she finds relevant. This is often done by sharing the posts of other users such as fashion blogger bryanboy. Other posts on her account feature the #girlscount and address Bee’s advocacy for the upliftment of African femmes. These two posts are an indicator of Bee’s investment in fashion and social activism highlighting the importance of this with her use of hashtagging. Some of 2017’s most powerful and unforgettable social media campaigns originated from this fast social media vortex such as the #metoo campaign. However, the lifespan of engagement with posts on Twitter is shorter than that of Facebook or standard Instagram posting.

    What sets Twitter apart then is that it is a platform where you are the most likely to engage with strangers in comparison to Facebook and Instagram. Although Instagram allows you to connect with strangers more often than not you will tend to follow individuals you know or who travel in similar circles to yourself. Twitter is a completely different social sphere. It is a space in which you can address and communicate with anyone in a very direct, for the world to see manner. What is noteworthy about Twitter is how it is that much less personal than other social media platforms. Users sometimes speak about themselves or mention events that occurred during their day but it acts as a platform for news and social activism in many ways. Its users utilize the tool to create campaigns and to voice their concerns with conversations that often times spread over multiple posts. Re-tweeting is also a great way in which your ideas can be brought to a larger audience.

  • Reconnecting Pangaea; documenting the revolution of African content creation

    The internet has surely changed everything, for the millenial generation it is now an intrinsic part of how we form our beliefs and how we perceive the world around us. In Africa, a continent misrepresented since it’s naming, the world wide web has opened space for Africans to tell their stories and represent themselves on a scale unseen in our recent history. This revolution of representation is happening now, it is a growing movement to reimagine what blackness is, and to contextualise it within the global cultural, economic and intellectual exchanges fostered by the unprecedented connectivity and unbounded creative control the internet offers.

    Reconnecting Pangaea is a three part documentary series investigating the impact of the internet in Africa, looking at the socio-economic and cultural conditions of Africans online. The first episode focuses on creative content contributed by young urban Africans, exploring their challenges and achievements in providing an African perspective on Africa, a necessary revolution in terms of our representation online and beyond. The creative contributions from content creators of the continent greatly expands the range of racial and cultural representation, offering complexity in the face of the reductive stereotypes of Africa and Africans that pervade traditional media.

    This episode of Reconnecting Pangaea features Siphiwe Mpye, former editor of the original modern youth platform, YMag. I’m pleased to report that BubblegumClub’s cultural contributions are mentioned in the episode alongside other eminent digital publications including MissMillib and Vanguard Magazine. Blacknation founder Andrew Simelane and RHTC founder and cultural entrepreneur Frypan Mfula are also featured with each of them emphasizing the importance of young, black content creators documenting our lives and experience while highlighting the exploitation of capitalist corporations cashing in on our creativity. The challenge in owning our ideas and monetising them is the next step in creating a world where the power relationships between creatives and corporations is subverted. The revolutionary road is long but the hustle continues. There are two more episodes to follow with the internet and it’s impact as the salient themes of the project. Reconnecting Pangaea provides an interrogation of the status quo, delving into the forces that create and commodify our cultures.