Courtney on Eberts

Jake Eberts spoke last week, and while he covered a variety of interesting topics, what struck me most was how his lecture caused me to reflect upon my initial reactions to other speakers and overarching themes of this course. Eberts opened my mind to the potential benefit of some of the trends in society and associated technologies that I initially deemed problematic. The first is the move toward everyone as an artist culture. The second is the ‘what I want, when I want it, where I want it’ mentality. To me the two are entangled in the move from passive observation toward active participation.

The first theme, advancing technology that allows everyone to “create” or “compose” is one that most troubled me. My first negative reaction was sparked by Girltalk when he talked about “dumping a beer on Elton John’s head” as a way of moving music from something created by a few to something that is accessible to and “created” by anyone with an interest and a computer. Brian Whitman also raised examples of iphone applications that allow people to buy songs for $2 strictly to “mess around with them” and create a product they like.

In the words of Sandy Pearlman my reservations to this may sound like “elitist old-school carping”, however I do not see the value in allowing everyone to leave their mark on the music world. The craft of Bach or Mahler cannot be compared to that of Girltalk. I see value in having untouched masterpieces created by the musical geniuses of our time and (passively) enjoyed by the rest of the population.

The “what I want, when I want it, where I want it” trend, was focused on by David Neale and to me sums up the move toward active participation with existing art. Initially I found this trend troubling as well. I questioned the need for each consumer to personalize and tweak the product she is enjoying.

I was totally on board with Pearlman’s rejection of everyone as artist culture until Eberts spoke. Eberts also caused me to reflect on my initial rejection of personalization trends by demonstrating how giving consumers/listeners a voice and the power to contribute has great potential for social good. Now I am wondering if perhaps we all do have something to contribute.

Eberts illustrated how giving the consumer an active role can be really great. He touched on the fact that it is the combination of the two above-mentioned trends that allows consumers/viewers to contribute meaningfully to social progress and raise awareness of important global issues. Eberts and Disney have taken advantage of this trend toward active participation by creating an interactive site to raise awareness of global ocean destruction. Citizen Global and Oprah have created a site that uses crowd sourcing to create public service ads. Eberts also sees this as the way of the future for quality video news.

Eberts convinced me that there is great potential in encouraging active participation with art instead of passive observation. I absolutely see the value in the film and television industry, but am still on the fence as far as the creation of music.