The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, April 12, 2017 — 5A
COURTESY OF NATE ROBERT
SOCIAL MEDIA COLUMN
The costs and benefits of
capturing injustice online
Whether it’s police brutality
against
Black
Americans,
unmediated violence or public
acts of verbal and physical
abuse, capturing and posting
videos have become imperative
when it comes to highlighting
everyday
acts
of
injustice.
But what these kinds of viral
videos portray in their content
is almost as vital as how they
are framed, who watches them
and whether or not it will
achieve its desired effect.
The most recent case of a
viral video of injustice came
just earlier this week when
several
passengers
on
an
overbooked
United
Airlines
flight captured something on
their phones that has already
caught national and online
attention: Two aviation guards
removed a male passenger off
the plane by force. Based on the
various videos of the event, the
scene is quite disturbing. You
can hear the collective shock
of nearby passengers and shrill
sound of the man’s scream, all
while witnessing the security
guards and the aggressive force
in dragging the man out of his
seat and onto the plane’s floor.
Another video shows the man,
his face now bloodied, running
to the back of the plane and
mumbling to himself: “Just kill
me. Just kill me now. I need to
go home.”
Since the incident occurred,
people have expressed their
anger
and
frustration
on
Twitter and other social media
platforms, claiming that this
man was unjustly taken off
the
plane.
However,
some
online
skeptics
have
tried
to rationalize the situation,
remarking how the man didn’t
cooperate. It makes sense that
people would react in both
ways. For some, it’s a human
instinct to empathize with
the victim, while others might
simply feel the need to justify
the motive of the authority in
question. But either way, this
situation shouldn’t be that hard
of an equation to solve. Even if
the man refused to comply, the
incident captured on camera
is clear enough evidence that
the way in which this man was
taken off the plane was unruly,
inappropriate and just plain
wrong.
Since the beating of Rodney
King in 1992, recording videos
has become a powerful weapon
in documenting injustice. With
the universal accessibility of
social media, these videos have
now an even greater advantage
of reaching audiences all over
the world.
Camera phone videos were
particularly influential after
the shooting of Michael Brown,
as they illustrated through the
Ferguson riots, highlighted the
issue of police brutality and
ultimately spread the message
of resistance in the Black Lives
Matter movement. Since then,
videos have become incredibly
significant
in
documenting
unjust beatings against Black
male civilians (i.e. Eric Garner,
Alton Sterling and Philando
Castile). And yet even when
a situation involving a man
or woman being beaten is
visually
encapsulated
and
draws sympathy, a “but-what-
if-this-happened”
rhetoric
erupts online. The videos each
share similar undertones for
how authority can mistreat a
victim.
Despite
how
cellphone
videos can bring important
awareness to a rarely discussed
issue, there’s something very
problematic
and
somewhat
counterproductive about the
act. Other than not telling the
fully story behind what is being,
the passive act of capturing
and posting videos of injustice
reinforces bystander culture.
The camera has the power
to illustrate a misdemeanor,
but what about the person
capturing the event? Or the
other people nearby witnessing
the incident? Shouldn’t they be
doing something? The most
plausible theory to explain
this passivity is because using
a camera phone is easier and
much safer than attempting to
defuse the situation yourself.
In some cases, recording for
evidence can make a huge
difference in how we perceive
issues like race and criminal
justice. But even when someone
films an innocent man selling
cigarettes is choked to death
on the sidewalk, there’s still a
probability that there won’t be
justice for the victim.
Viral videos of injustice
might also not be the most
helpful tool in giving full
context
of
what
they’re
capturing. In fact, whatever
incident
is
being
depicted
can have drastically different
effects on viewers, depending
on the angle or quality of
the camera. When we watch
these
videos
online,
they
automatically prime to us side
with either the authority or
the victim, depending on our
implicit biases. Do we side
with the victim because we
feel compassion for someone
who is being hurt physically
and emotionally? Or do we side
with the authority because we
hate it when a person refuses
to respect and listen to them?
My guess is that the blame
should lie not with the victim
or the authority, but the power
structures that are responsible
for creating such a incident,
deliberate or not. Perhaps it isn’t
the man on the United Airlines
we should be blaming, or even
the security guards who carried
out this horrifying act — what
they did was nevertheless awful
and should not have been as
violent as it ended up being.
Rather, it is the incompetence of
United Airlines that deserves the
most accountability. Their first
mistake was overbooking the
flight, but it was the company’s
negligence of this situation and
their mistreatment of forcibly
removing this passenger. United
CEO Oscar Munoz has released
a statement, apologizing to the
passenger and the online but
the damage is already done. The
repercussions will live forever
on tape.
SAM
ROSENBERG
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
‘Yeezus’ & the Bauhaus
Reflecting on industrial art and how it attests to Kanye’s artistry
When
you
think
of
Architecture, with a capital A,
you might consider European
cathedrals,
gothic
college
campuses and maybe some all-
glass building with an all-white
interior.
So
many
Tumblr-
esque corners of the internet
are cluttered with images of
supremely tasteful homes and
buildings, but almost none are
of educational value. They just
seem like nice spaces to be in,
but it’s hard to understand why.
Like music, you just know when
you feel it.
I
took
an
Architecture
class last winter to try and
understand
how
a
space
can impose itself on us, and
perhaps vice-versa. Why do
we make monuments? How do
cities construct an identity?
Can somewhere really be an
empirically proven depressant,
and how do you “fix” such a
place?
I had most of my questions
answered on a field trip to
Lafayette Park: a legendary
neighborhood
in
downtown
Detroit,
designed
entirely
German architect Mies Van der
Rohe. Those who know me best
know about my lifelong Kanye
West fandom, so of course,
an undertone of my field trip
experience was in effort to
understand West’s Yeezus-era
obsession
with
mid-century
modern architecture.
This
is
well-documented
in many of West’s interviews
and hidden easter eggs, and if
you look in the right places, a
strong argument could be made
for considering Yeezus to be a
legitimate “Bauhaus Album”.
Specifically,
while
touring,
I couldn’t help but think of
an interview he did with Jon
Caramanica of the New York
Times, where he went as far as
to cite a Le Corbusier lamp as a
crucial “inspiration” for Yeezus.
For all of his efforts at
building one of the greatest
decade-spanning runs in music
history, there’s no doubt that
the Kanye West Experience
has always been about more
than the music. There is neither
focal point nor distraction:
Everything ranging from the
brash interviews to the designer
album covers contributes to a
career-spanning performance
art piece.
Even before the barrel of the
media followed his every move,
Kanye’s
relentless
personal
development has always had
architectural
undertones.
Before he was a Kardashian, he
was a clumsy college dropout,
packaging
chipmunk-soul
in Beaux-Arts frames. Late
Registration shows his now-
iconic bear mascot peeking
out from the doors of a stone
cathedral; it should have been
no surprise when he performed
select tracks from the album
with a full orchestra at Abbey
Road Studios.
The Glow In The Dark
Tour seemed to hyperextend
Takashi Murakami’s vision of
“Superflat” into a synesthetic
cannon. A film he directed for
Cruel Summer was projected on
seven screens, superimposed
on a pyramid-shaped pavilion
designed by Dutch architect
Rem Koolhaas. Every Kanye
West album is an extension
of a school of thought that
transcends the realm of music.
Where
Kanye
travels
to
and creates his music is, in my
opinion, the greatest indication
of the space he intends for
his music to occupy. He took
a sabbatical in Rome before
creating My Beautiful Dark
Twisted Fantasy, dabbled in
Japan during the Graduation
era and made The Life of Pablo
in Calabasas. It shows.
Yeezus, on the other hand,
was recorded in-between a
notoriously stark Manhattan
loft, and an apartment in
Paris’
16th
Arrondissement.
Now imagine Rick Rubin, and
his beard, in either of those
settings. Nice.
Like
all
Kanye
albums,
Yeezus is no exception in being
a product of its environment.
The relationship is sometimes
hilariously direct; in the same
interview with Caramanica,
West revealed that he recorded
in the living room of his Paris
loft — which had “the worst
acoustics possible” — and thus
the songs “had to be super
simple, because if you turned
up some complicated sound
and a track with too much bass,
it’s not going to work in that
space.” This is, by definition,
engineering music for the space
you intend for it to occupy.
The Le Corbusier citation
for Yeezus is most interesting
because it’s his most explicit
architectural
reference
yet,
and I find it to be worth
considerable investigation in
linking Yeezus to one of the
most influential architectural
movements and schools of all
time: The Bauhaus.
I
remember
back
when
Yeezus first dropped, and the
“no-album-cover” album cover
felt like a bit of a like a lazy cop-
out. The fact that “On Sight”
kicked the door in with a digital
buzzsaw didn’t help; visual
and sonic first impressions felt
intentionally rugged.
Yet, the laziest criticism of
post-MBDTF
‘Ye
capitalizes
on these sorts of low-hanging
fruit, spraying nonsense about
his alleged “sloppiness” and
“decline” since creating one of
the most universally likeable
albums of the century. While
popular
opinion
remains
that Kanye West is first and
foremost an “asshole”, and
musician second, holding and
listening to Yeezus today in light
of his architectural footprint
seems to communicate a vision
clear enough to remove all
doubt regarding his multimedia
genius. Where The Life of Pablo
is more a product of 1950s Los
Angeles “Googie” architecture,
Yeezus is as cold and balanced
as a Bauhaus product in every
sense.
—
The core tenet of Bauhaus
industrial design is structural
transparency; clarity is the
ultimate sophistication.
As we all know, the now-
infamous
physical
copies
of Yeezus are designed as
functionalist CD cases. No
bells and whistles; the function
is simply to house the disc.
While touring a specific unit
in Lafayette Park, I remember
taking note a of a sink that was
particularly helpful in making
this connection.
Where most sinks contain
features
like
cabinets
and
cupboards
to
abstract
the
underlying plumbing, this sink
hid nothing. The frame of the
sink was only inches deep (as
little as necessary to funnel
the water), with two iron pegs
as support. The infrastructure
set in place for plumbing was
also completely visible — no
ornamentation.
One
could
easily identify weight-bearing
components of the sink, and
follow the path of the water
from start to finish. While a CD
case isn’t nearly as dynamic as
a sink with moving parts, the
design philosophy remains the
same.
Aside from Kanye himself,
the first names that come
to mind when I think of the
Yeezus era are Rick Rubin and
Virgil Abloh — Kanye’s creative
director. Virgil has a masters
degree in Architecture from the
Illinois Institute of Technology
in
Chicago,
where
Mies
himself has actually designed
the curriculum (it should be
noted that West has also been
documented Googling Mies in
Paris around the same time).
While I had the privilege of
SHAYAN SHAFII
Daily Arts Writer
visiting Virgil’s “Off-White”
store
in
Hong
Kong
two
summers ago, an employee
spoke to me about how Virgil
himself participated in the
design process for the tropical
storefront. There is no doubt
that he, as a seasoned architect
educated to Mies’ liking, had a
hand in the creative direction
of Yeezus.
Sonically, the album draws
from Rick Rubin’s minimalist
zen in addition to the sparse
spaces that birthed it. Billing
himself as more of a “reducer”
than “producer,” Rubin was
largely responsible for fleshing
out the entire album over
the course of a week. I still
remember
running
through
My Beautiful Dark Twisted
Fantasy all day in anticipation
of my first listen through
Yeezus, and in hindsight, this
was terrible preparation to
hear an album made by a guy
who reinvents himself twice a
year. Where Twisted Fantasy
is architecturally equivalent to
something like the classically
ornate
Pantheon,
Rubin
stripped Yeezus down to a
carbon-fiber skeleton.
The end of “I’m In It”, for
example, has a certain space
and volume about it that lurches
and collapses in on itself; the
high-hats don’t layer so much
as they wait for one another,
spacing themselves out and
alternating between left and
right
channels.
Somewhere
in the middle, Kanye remains
in focus, but rapping as if his
words
intermittently
pass
through a strobe light. The
bass kicks up dust with every
iteration. The song sounds like
a hollowed-out sex factory.
“I Am A God” kicks off with
an echo that bounces around
some freezing abyss. Kanye’s
voice is warped and permuted
into variations of itself, flying
in from all directions. Even on
the 100th listen you struggle to
predict where he comes from.
The most venomous track
on the album, “New Slaves”,
is driven by a single synth
melody; it feels as hollow as
the loft it was written in, and
as cold as the stone it originally
vibrated on. Again, Kanye’s
voice is an industrial hammer-
blow between keystrokes. His
panting on “Black Skinhead”
seems to drip sweat on the
barking synths that open the
track. Each and every song
is
arranged
with
enough
elements for you to count on
one hand, but together they
form soundscapes built on the
Bauhaus design language.
In the same way that an
architect
places
walls
and
columns to create a structure
that
you
can
navigate
experientially,
Yeezus
sees
Kanye narrow in on specific
sonic elements like a synth or
808, and guide them through
various crevices of a single
track. The sparse layers create
spaces in songs that don’t
exist
elsewhere
in
Kanye’s
discography; for the first time,
Kanye
ditches
church
and
orchestra rehearsal to play with
fire in an industrial complex.
If
his
traditionally
lush
instrumentation
suffocates
you through raw enumeration
(think: how many people must
have been in that “Ultralight
Beam” choir?), Yeezus throws
you through a meatgrinder in
an empty warehouse.
The whole album reminds
me of one of Mies’ most
famous sketches — a piece
titled “Concert Hall” — where
he draws 2D planes on an
image of an empty airplane
factory. The tessellation of
beams and columns creates a
certain elegance possible only
through
Bauhaus
structural
transparency; yet, the space
between the columns creates
a cold, airless vacuum. This
is the space that Yeezus — the
Bauhaus album — occupies.
It was assembled with the
sophistication of mid-century
modern
industrialism
and
architecture,
yet
executed
with the cold ruthlessness of a
Black man denied entry to the
bourgeoisie world of fashion. In
one motion, he creates a project
to show that he can “do it too”,
but won’t let you in unless you
cut the red tape first.
The core tenet
of Bauhaus
industrial design
is structural
transparency;
clarity is
the ultimate
sophistication
Where Kanye
travels to and
creates his music
is, in my opinion,
the greatest
indication of the
space he intends
for his music to
occupy
In the same way
that an architect
places walls and
columns to create
a structure that
you can navigate
experientially,
‘Yeezus’ sees
Kanye narrow in
on specific sonic
elements like a
synth or 808