Television/internet as postmodern art form?

In questioning television’s role as a postmodern art form, Glenn Ward states,

“...one of the ways in which TV is used is as a source for the creation of private video archives. In this way, we can ‘possess’ particular programmes, and in doing so make permanent the otherwise transient moment in what sometimes is called TV’s flow of sounds and Images. Unless the consumer decides to store certain broadcasts on tape or disc - perhaps frequently reviewing them, perhaps pausing on favourite instants, and in the process making them into very different kinds of texts - the TV programme has a fleeting existence which distinguishes it from what we might think of a the traditional relationship between art and ‘timelessness.’ “

While this discussion might relate to our ‘traditional’ relationship with TV, one that I have forsaken for a few years now, considering that this statement was included in a book which was last published in 2003 we can potentially look at TV through the youTube lense.

As a consumer, I collected DVDs and CDs much like any other person, amassing a personal collection or archive that I could access at will. While this may seem like ‘normal’ behavior to most of us, it can be critiqued as fruitless and selfish behavior considering the access of (specifically video) information with the advent of youTube, Netflix, and less popular sites that provide the bandwidth and means to watch films and shows. An example of the fruitlessness of this Pokemon-Gotta-Catchem-All approach is a friend of mine who upon meeting had the largest personal collection of movies on VHS. He had more movies and more variety than some video rental places. After knowing him for a few years, I was aware that he was on a mission to convert his collection from VHS to DVD, not by copying the information but by abandoning his old formats and re-purchasing the same titles on DVD. He is a Motion Picture Association dream customer. If I am not mistaken, he has already begun or completed his new quest of replacing his DVD collection with Bluray, which will inevitably be replaced by whatever 3D or holographic format that comes next, and so on.

While this is an extreme example, I do believe that many of us can relate to this industry generated need-to-possess drive, particularly with the explosion and popularity of television show compilations (the entire run of Seinfeld comes to mind). However, with the online archive of video that has been compiled with youTube (copyright infringement notwithstanding) and the ability to watch many titles instantly via Netflix or eventually via Netflix in the mail, I have finally shed my desire to own information. I now treat the internet as a library, where I can potentially ‘check out’ anything I want to see, as many or as few times as I decide. Sometimes I can do this for free, other times for a very affordable price. While I could not rid myself of every title I owned, I easily reduced my personal database by at least 75%. I then began to think about my collection of books in the same respect, knowing that many of the physical books that I owned could be just as easily ‘temporarily owned’ just by going to the library.

While this is one person’s example of a liberation from ownership based on ease of access to information, I think this mentality will gain momentum in society as a whole. As sad as it may seem sometimes, much of our culture (specifically internet and global popular culture) is expressed and generated through TV or similar media. If we have a memory of an old show or movie or a scene that we want to illustrate, we can access it almost instantly. This approach is permeating our society in an incredibly powerful way. ‘Possessing’ specific factual information itself is almost obsolete when a small device that many of us carry can be used to Google the answer faster than we can convince someone that we know information beforehand. I am sure that many academics will roll their eyes and despair at the obsolescence of retaining knowledge, but my impression is that the only practical need for ‘owning’ facts would be a professional career as a Jeopardy contestant. Alternatively, I propose the possibility that we are witnessing the death of the old model of measuring intelligence by the ability to regurgitate information based on memory in exchange for the need to train ourselves and each other to value critical thinking skills based on such information.

Let us consider the internet as a source of information which allows us to instantly cite our discussions (no matter how untrue or distorted, even morons can find other morons to agree with). If we can look at information and intelligence in a new light, maybe we can make progress in the way we measure it. Regardless of the difference in supporting one’s point of view by spending weeks or months researching in a traditional library or providing a couple of links that reinforce your argument, ultimately stupid people will still be stupid and intelligence will still be intelligence.

While I leave the specific associations and arguments to those more versed in modern theory, I believe that this discussion highlights Television as a component of an evolving information system that dislocates initial sources into broad 'genres' of perspective. Perhaps this underlies what we are trying to understand when we talk about Postmodernity.