SPACES & EXCHANGES - Written work on two individual documents Exchanges in Real Spaces & Virtual Spaces

In order to illustrate the notion of "Spaces and Exchanges" through both virtual and real spaces, I have picked two documents: a cartoon illustrating virtual spaces and and a video illustrating real spaces.

Social Media In Real Life, published by cartoonist Sarah See Andersen on her Tumblr Blog which can be found here.

I found this cartoon interesting in order to illustrate this notion, since it represents social media (a virtual space) actually transformed into a real space: a big stage in which the main character is standing. She allegedly shows how social media would be like if it went beyond a mere screen and became everyone's way of communicating in real life, and we realize it's a nonsense. By making the little girl shout in front of a huge crowd something as irrelevant as the fact she just ate a burger, the author makes us aware of how people posting on social media are attention-seekers who are looking forward to make 'public' every tiny detail of their lives.  Nevertheless, the crowd seems somewhat interested about the information given (they randomly shout "like!" and "me too!"). What the author means is, perhaps, that we are focusing too much on virtual spaces although they rarely provide useful information.

The Suburbs official video directed by Spike Jonze, song by canadian-american band Arcade Fire introducing their homonym album in 2010.

This song's lyrics are the following:

In the suburbs I

I learned to drive
And you told me we'd never survive
Grab your mother's keys we're leavin'

You always seemed so sure
That one day we'd fight in
In a suburban world
your part of town gets minor
So you're standin' on the opposite shore
But by the time the first bombs fell
We were already bored
We were already, already bored

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling again

Kids wanna be so hard
But in my dreams we're still screamin' and runnin' through the yard
And all of the walls that they built in the seventies finally fall
And all of the houses they build in the seventies finally fall
Meant nothin' at all
Meant nothin' at all
It meant nothin

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling and into the night

So can you understand?
Why I want a daughter while I'm still young
I wanna hold her hand
And show her some beauty
Before this damage is done

But if it's too much to ask, it's too much to ask
Then send me a son

Under the overpass
In the parking lot we're still waiting
It's already passed
So move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass
Cause it's already passed
It's already, already passed!

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling again

I'm movin' past the feeling
I'm movin' past the feeling

In my dreams we're still screamin'
We're still screamin'
We're still screaming'

I chose this song not only because I find it enriching and beautifully written, but also since it offers a completely different overview of something as traditional (and somewhat boring) as the suburbs that can be found in the peripheral area of every big American city, inhabited by middle-class families. This song begins with a honkey tonk piano, and the first stanza of the lyrics is quite innocent: it illustrates the life of an average suburban family. The lyrics are narrated by a young man evoking his childhood in the suburbs, remembering how sweet and innocent his life used to be before his dreams were forced through the meat grinder of real life. When he was a child, everything from outside the suburbs, such as war, seemed distant and irrelevant ("but by the time the first bombs fell we were already bored"). Now he looks back feeling nostalgic. He realizes everything he believed in back then was meaningless and unreal, but still he would have that rather than the real world he has been forced to discover during his adulthood, in which every trace of beauty is being brutally destroyed. This song introduces a real space through one of his inhabitant's viewpoint, which makes us see the suburbs  in a more complex, yet intimate, way. 

POST 11: SPACES & EXCHANGES: ¿Qué? A cartoon by Nate Beeler (2007)

As we have already reacted together in class to a few Nate Beeler political cartoons concerning USA primaries and focusing on the character of Donald Trump, I thought it could perhaps be more interesting to deal with some cartoons that have an aim other than to denounce Trump and his rising power and influence in the country. There are many controversies right now concerning not only the USA but also a great part of the planet and these cartoons aims to illustrate some of them. 

The Apple company has a worldwide reputation for producing high quality phones, tablets and computers. This firm has, however, an agreement with the FBI which allows their agents to virtually break into a very specific person's device in case they believe this person has done something that goes against the law. To do this, they need the consent of the whole firm; but a few weeks a go the FBI asked Apple the right to break into anyone's electronic devices without having to ask for permission to the company; which Apple denied forthright. This cartoon illustrates the strength of the company (symbolized through the image of an iPhone) when facing the aggressive pressure of the FBI, who wants to symbolically break into that phone. There is a message on the screen, that says "Right to Privacy" along with the icon of the company: a bitten Apple. Still, the screen is starting to get damaged by the huge machine that represents the FBI: the cartoonist thinks that, eventually, the firm might succumb to FBI's pressure. 

There is a massive problem in the United States that concerns all citizens (as long as they want to have an education): College Fees. In American culture, the college or university a person will attend is decisive for his or her future professional career, as a college is a symbol of social empowerment. Someone who will study at an Ivy League University won't have any problem when it comes to finding a good job later on in his life; whilst someone attending a random college will struggle a lot more. Colleges have become a symbol of the social elite; and a family often needs to save money for many years so their child can attend a good college. This cartoon shows a morbid obese man wearing a hospital gown in which we can read "Public Colleges" (hence the man stands for high colleges fees). He is supposed to weigh himself in a balance that says "State Audit"(In America, the State Audit conducts financial and compliance and performance audits, investigations, and special studies to provide the General Assembly, the Governor, and the citizens with objective information about the state’s financial condition and the performance of the state’s many agencies and programs). Public Colleges are supposed to show their fees are lower, or at least that's what the government wants to do in order to satisfy people, but somehow Public Colleges, that are supposed to obey the government since they are public institutions, always  find a way to increase educational fees.  

This cartoon was published by Nate Beeler on 03/09/2007

I) Here, we can see a stereotypical american show presenter or a reporter dressed in an elegant black suit and followed by a tv camera man. The presenter is smiling and holding a mic, and by his words we can see he's getting ready to interview the "300 millionth American". Still, by his side we see a quite poor man, barefoot and wearing stained clothes, who is holding on to his few belongings. He still has a piece of electrocuted fence at his feet, which shows he just crossed the border that separates Mexico and the United States. He asks "Qué?" to the presenter, as he doesn't speak english and therefore cannot understand what he's being told. There is a very strong contrast between these two groups of characters. 

II) Every year, thousands of hispanic immigrants cross the border that separates Mexico and the USA as they crave the land of opportunity that country has become to their eyes; they see it as a possibility to escape the extreme poverty they are surrounded by in their home countries. The immigrants do not come necessarily from Mexico; they come from anywhere in Central and South America and sometimes they have to cross many countries in order to reach Mexico and reach the USA from there. Nevertheless, those immigrants once they arrive to the United States (if they do) must face the fact that they have become an ethnic minority and live in a country that is not theirs, surrounded by a culture they don't truly understand. They have become "foreign Americans"which translates in social exclusion and many difficulties when it comes to, for example, finding a job. This cartoon shows that, nowadays, Americans do not only come from America and that the country is forced to involve in their culture and society people who do not feel, in any way, identified with it. 

III) This cartoon illustrates the notion "Spaces and Exchanges" by showing the crash between two cultures that are being confronted nowadays dure to the massive wave of hispanic immigration in the United States. This confrontation takes place within a limited space: the borders of the country. In this picture, that opposition is visual: the compere is dressed in a very elegant way that contrasts violently with the poverty of the clothes the latino immigrant wears. Also, they do not even speak the same language or understand each other: there is going to be an exchange, but it's going to be really limited since the contrast between the two groups each character represents here is huge.