This week we’ve had a lecture and a seminar based on Adorno and Horkheimer’s
book Dialectic of Enlightenment.Even though that the book is written in the 1940’s, its still applicable on our society today. Adorno and Horkheimer are analyzing the start of the mass media which we today are constant surrounded with. The lecture gave a bigger understanding about the members of the Frankfurt School and their beliefs in neo-marxism.
On the seminar we discussed the context how the book was written.
Adorno and Horkheimer fled from the nazi regime in Germany and ended up in Los Angeles.
The culture shock probably affected their writing and can explain why they are very pessimistic about mass media. The authors which probably identified themselves as a part of the cultural elite would not accept this new culture as art, instead they wanted to save people from this degradation the new media was causing. During the seminar we discussed the definition of “art” and how hard it is to define it. According to Leif the most simple but also the used definition is that “art is what you can find in art galleries”. We also tried to define “individualism” and how’s it almost impossible to not be part of a group.
I found this theme interesting and the lecture and seminar was a nice complement to Adorno and Horkheimer’s book.
I think that the “art is what you can find in art galleries” is too simple definition. Nowadays we have a lot of different performances. For example, lest week Russian performance artist nails himself to Red Square cobblestone.
SvaraRaderahttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2497811/Russian-performance-artist-nails-Red-Square-cobblestone-TESTICLES-protest-Kremlins-crackdown-rights.html
And he and some other people think that it is the art. So my idea that we need some more criteria to judge.