Exit through the Gift Shop

“Exit through the Gift Shop” is a documentary (or possibly a mockumentary?) that was initially started by a French immigrant with a passion for filming, Thierry Guetta. Fueled by his accidental discovery of the underground world of street art, Guetta begins focusing his time on capturing the essence of graffiti artists and their works. He fully immerses himself in the new and exciting domain, dedicating his life to following prominent artists. The artists cautiously embrace the quirky “filmmaker” and Thierry learns more and more about what goes into the illegal act. Eventually, Guetta’s journey leads him to the infamous Banksy. It is here where the tables turn.

Thierry, inspired by one of Bank’s shows, now wants to be a part of the action and decides to become a street artist himself. Banksy decides to take the footage Thierry gathered and begins to put the documentary together. The once offbeat, but loveable, Frenchmen has now becomes the money-driven “Mr. Brainwash.” He sets up his own gallery exhibit in Los Angeles and through some questionable advertising methods, creates a great sense of suspense and luster around his makeshift show.
Though his show was an instant success, with his work selling for hundreds of dollars apiece, he would never be fully apart of the “true” world of street art again. The artists he once studied under have since renounced him for being a sellout. Mr. Brainwash’s works were far from original, borrowing techniques and styles from the artists he shadowed. The mas- produced works took away from the taboo nature of the art.

The fact that street art is illegal empowers the methods and makes it truly meaningful. Street artists are willing to face legal actions to express themselves, making their work much more risky. This helps to weed out those who don’t belong in the field. Guetta’s works were done in a gallery setting and broke no laws. Because of this, much of his work, in my opinion, is of very little or no value. He faced no risks and did not give a legitimate part of himself to his “art.”

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Keen Reading Questions

1. Keen says democratized media undermines the truth and takes away from pure talent and experience. It trivializes expertise and makes claims it can not even begin to fill. Because of this, he finds it ironic that the term is even used. It creates less reliable news and has lead to a great deal of misinformation.


2. While Keen sees social media as a way of spreading falsities, Rushkoff sees it as a means to connect to world. Rushkoff believes such person to person sharing is an effective way of spreading news in the fastest way possible. I personally believe the media is capable of both these things. While we do get information at incredibly high speeds, the stories are not always being filtered or corrected. Even so, I would rather be given false facts that I can later research to determine their validity than to be cut off from the rest of the world. 

Comments

I commented on Mark Plage, Ali Read and Matt DiPillo's blogposts.

Wither the Individual?

As a freshman in college, it was a huge adjustment moving away from home and saying goodbye to my friends. We all worried about losing touch with one another and being unable to remain as close as we were during high school. Fortunately, I am still close with all of them. I feel this continued level of connection is greatly because of our use of social networking sites.

By using sites such as Facebook, it is very easy to remain in contact. Not only is it helpful for intrapersonal relationships, but it’s very beneficial in group communication as well. It allows for people to comment on activities between other people and send messages to multiple people at a time. The content put on the Internet becomes extensions of ourselves and allows us to expand our identities. Unfortunately, online profiles only allow us to express ourselves to a certain extent.

We are forced to conform to the specifications of the sites we use, which does not allow for complete displays of our individuality. Though we are given some freedoms such as a profile picture and a status, we are not given the ability to format our pages or add anything not approved by the site. This makes “our” websites less personal and clusters users together in a way that doesn’t allow for true individual expression.

That being said, it is still possible to get your point across through the use of notes and meaningful posts. Unfortunately, society does not always allow us to do so. Even if your profile is put on private, you are still not entirely protected. Others can and will see the content you post which discourages people from sharing personal and intimate thoughts. Without being able to share these deep and clandestine emotions, the full person is not being represented. Instead, a surface-level representation is all that is being seen. This is fine when the site is being used by casual acquaintances, but when friends and family members try to use it in the same way, they are unable to fully capture the essence of their loved one.

Though Facebook may not be the place for divulging personal information, there are sites on the Internet that allow a person’s true personality to be expressed. With the use of blogging websites such as Tumblr and Blogspot users can take advantage of the sites flexible yet simple design. They can add videos, photos and written text to express themselves. Though these pages are just as public, if not more public than profiles on Facebook, they are less connected to the users name, which allows for people to become more open. But, with the gain of personal expression, you lose the sense of connection with others.

Overall, there is not now (and possibly never will be) a way to fully express all facets of our humanity in an online media. Our individuality cannot be fully expressed and the elemental roots of our personalities cannot be seen as they truly are.