Check out my second channel! UKposts.com/@germinaal

Anyone using 'degenerate' or 'degeneracy' as earnest categories of criticism raises huge red flags for me. Their job then becomes to convince me how they are not fascist, because that's what I'm assuming at that point. Different tastes in art is fine, and criticizing art is also good. But 'degenerate' literally alludes to an idea of art - and the people making and partaking in this art - being misformed, ill, devolved to a 'lower' stage, 'subhuman'. That's not art criticism, that's dehumanizing rhetoric. So, I don't think you ever have to defend a piece of art from allegations of 'degeneracy'. Rather, people using such terms should have to defend and explain themselves, since they are so clearly paying homage to the ideas inherent in fascism.

It felt really dramatic thinking the robot was actually bleeding to death. I felt betrayed by knowing it was all an illusion - the bleeding, that is. But - it makes even more sense. It's not the saddest robot because it's struggling to keep itself from bleeding to death - it's the saddest robot because it was _made to think it had to work_ , to struggle because it was _made to think it was bleeding to death_ . It kept performing the task it was appointed to do _until it was worn out_ because it thought it was in danger. It wasn't. It could have stopped, if it could but reprogram itself, if it knew it was an illusion We can. We do. Why do we betray ourselves?

It's wild that they picked that piece to use as an example of degeneracy, maybe one of the easiest to interpret pieces of modern art. Both the popular and intended meanings are very easy to arrive at and resonate easily with most people. Normally these types pick something that's difficult to read meaning into, especially a meaning that's actually not that far from the intended one.

I first saw this work a few years ago and interpreted it as a reflection of the human condition- kinda like sisyphus forever pushing the boulder up the hill- but in a more corrupted form, reflecting the reality of the working class under capitalism. Despite increased automation, we are working even more than we did centuries ago. There is also a growing sense of alienation from our labor. Most people don’t like their jobs yet are stuck because they fear losing everything. And the cost of living has skyrocketed, making it hard to even retire

I watched CCs video when it went up and most of the comments were... concerned. The general consensus seemed to be we all kind of knew what "degeneracy" meant, or what it meant that he was saying it, but it was also amusing that the films he did show as "good" were in of themselves once considered degenerate (for God's sake, he's kidding himself if he thinks French New Wave wasn't once seen as trash).

On an unrelated note - Question: Is Disco Elysium art? - Please send your 30,000 word essay to someone who hasn't heard of Disco Elysium.

Seeing it in action and thinking of the authoritarian interpretation struck me. The way it moved and danced was haunting, as if it was trying to draw attention away from the blood by putting on a little show. Like how propaganda draws attention with a song, a dance, a smile. Dont look at the blood, everything is fine.

I'm glad you made a video on this piece. I remember seeing this online years ago, now I work with these robots every day so that interpretation about empathy of needing the fluid to live changed after I learned they don't actually use hydraulic fluid to function. The monotony of capitalism makes a lot more sense to me with this piece. I do not think this is meaningless, it's stuck with me for a few years now.

I used to watch some of their videos bc Im a movie nerd, but some of them had a weird feeling and those kinds of videos seem to be becoming more common for them

people label things “degenerate” in order to avoid admitting they don’t have the capacity to understand it. “IT’S OBSCENE” is just shorthand for “i’m a simple-minded dullard who lacks curiosity, intellect, empathy and imagination.”

I first saw this piece when I was a lot younger, and - from my memory, correct me if I’m wrong - it used to dance. It created joyful movements simply because it could - it didn’t actually help in its task, but was something it could “choose” to do. I remember that, when it started to slow down, it stopped dancing. It still had some erratic movements, but it stopped doing them just because it could; it became something more like a mechanical failure from constant repetition. Make of that what you will, but I’m so glad you covered this piece. It has so many layers, far past what most who saw it know of. It’s a melancholic kind of beauty, really. Wonderful video

Unrelated to the video, I'm a teen from Norway. I'm just getting into art, and I'm thinking about studying art history. I just wanted to thank you for introducing me to art. I'm feeling pretty down for the time, and your videos have gotten me through a lot. It's nothing too serious (girl problems) but it's enough to have an impact. I don't want to rant, but thank you for making entertaining videos about things that can be so sad :)

Not a big fan of modern art, generally speaking, but this piece is exceptional. Not only is it fascinating to watch the arm's various operations, but the ultimately futile, Sisyphus-like nature of its task has a timeless appeal.

As theoretical frameworks, i think deleuze's concept of microfascism is a must-know to think of current neofascist trends (similar to what you called a "fascist intent"). I also love guattari's aesthetical paradigm, which focuses on the radical process of subjective creation and not on art as an object ("is this art?" becomes meaningless). Hito Steyler texts are also a must to analyze contemporary art, especially its relations to digital media and technology (videoart, hacker-art, installations, amazing topics for videos btw)

Because I'm the true degenerate, my first I thought was: "Where's the health bar?"

No art is “degenerate”. You can dislike a piece, and even dislike an artist, and you can (and should!) criticize and examine the conditions and context under which different types of art are promoted and produced, but anyone earnestly using a term coined by the Nazis to describe art has forfeited their authority to analyze or criticize it at all.

I feel as if those attempting to diagnose "modern art" in one big sweep of often rebranded old clichés probably dont realize the immensity of contemporary creative work. Never before have so many people had the means for expressing themselves, never mind the means of distribution - there are more artist in the world now than ever before. Will this result in banality? Sure. But we shouldnt blame the world for our own inability to find art that is personally meaningful. Just look deeper and if that dosent do the trick make it yourself there are no excuses. The world is not to blame for our lack of receptivity to the meaning within it.

Great video on a really effective piece of art. Bridging the gap between classic art and contemporary is quite difficult. An incredible new painter that use classical style in a contemporary fashion is the young Rosalie Gamache who trained classically in Italy before taking the next steps. I can't wait to see her grow.

Dude, best video you've made, maybe the most important, idk.❤

I stumbled on this piece at the Venice biennale 2019 and ot fascinated me immediatly. It felt so sad and demoralizing watching the robot. I definetly prokected a lot of feeling on this object and it stuck in my mond

Hi, thank you for the help with my remains project 3 months back. I passed with top marks and your channel really helped me out, you and art assignment are like my encyclopedia for art. Again thank you so much!!!

I was initially ready to dismiss this piece as not being art, but half through your video, I felt something akin to empathy towards the robot, thanks to the comparison to Sisyphus. Thank you for yet another thought-provoking video.

Its really sad what happened with that channel, an antiquated and elitist View of Art that produces lofty and empty analyses

Shawn, you have so raised the bar with this one. Although I'm certain there will be points in the future when I would love to debate with you, here I must say I am so very proud to support you. Brilliant.

Initially, when you mentioned human condition, i thought of mental illness (ocd, anxiety, depression, etc). I, also, thought of the stuff people have to do to survive that is put on them regardless if it is capitalism or not. It gets tiring but people cant help themselves if they want to survive. Diabetic individual have to check their sugars, endlessley is seems, so they can, endlessly, tale their medicine. So, I completely and insainly understand the monontony behind a task given to survive that seems to be like i cant help myself.

I think refusing to assign meaning to your own art work is in an act of resistance. For me, it highlights something we forget when asking what something means: something doesn't have to have a meaning, some higher purpose, to be worth experiencing? Yes, a meaningful life is important as a concept but in the world we live in, "meaningful life" has been turned into how much money someone makes and how many trips they can go on or people they can save. We've put a capitalistic value on even the experience of living. It is the same values that try to portray art as a meaningless medium. Not assigning a meaning to something is freedom, it is permission to live outside of what society defines as a life worth living. People also forget that the "life must have meaning" mantra has been used to devalue and end the lives of the disabled. The disabled are not useless or meaningless, but our lives should not have to serve a higher purpose to justify why we should be allowed to exist. I cannot think of a life more enriched and fulfilling than one that does not need to live up to a social ideal of being "useful" to be enjoyable. I'm not sure if I am completely making sense, but I hope it does not sound pretentious. I just know that letting go of my need to be someone who is put in the history books has allowed me to breathe for the first time and survive for myself rather than to please others, which sounds selfish but I feel there is a way to live life with care for others without making your life not your own.

This video might have become my favourite in all youtube, could have said it louder but not clearer. A brilliant analysis, love this channel

before watching the video i want to share what i see when i see can't help myself. its not important or anything, but the piece always leaves me so impossibly emotional and i have to release my feelings on this art work somehow; i dont think i ever heard about the hydraulic fluid story regarding can't help myself. in fact i dont think i ever heard about anything but the name of the piece and the videos of it cleaning in that room. and i still am devastated everytime i see it. but the fact that it is a robot that tries to clean up the mess, and year after year, the area where it is held gets dirtier and dirtier, speaks to something in me. if the robot hadnt been there, trying to clean up the red fluid, the room would have been cleaner. like the robot is trying to fix something broken but making it worse. another part of the piece that almoust makes me cry is the fact that the robot keeps on cleaning. it cant stop trying, even though said cleaning makes everything worse. so to me its a piece about not being able to let go and ruining things because of it.

We are all traped in this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death.

I love this artwork and I'm glad you made a video on it ❤

i'm in love with your videos about contemporary art

CC’s fashy turn was so disappointing. I really liked their older videos just talking about international film. Things didn’t start getting weird in their videos until COVID, though of course maybe they just used to hide it better

Passive-Agressively teaching others who are wrong about the profundity of contemporary art. I Love it!

I'm incredibly dissappointed by The Cinema Cartography which was my favorite channel on youtube. I'm so fucking mad that now they are just people who think they're better because they "look for excellence" in art. Pretentious, overly intellectual and boring in how they view art.

Thats just great art; look at the many interpretations that you could ascribe to it. The piece links between history (classical and modern) and contemporary issues.

To me, it always felt like the effort to desperately keep yourself and your life together, and failing. Trying to hold in all the things you're struggling with and not being able to keep up the appearance of being ok.

EDIT: Oh wow. Oh... Wow. I just rewatched the "Degeneracy" video and... Wow. Yeah. I take it back. The F-word is right up there. I've never thought of TheCinemaCartography as fascist, but they do seem elitist from the point of view of, if they don't understand or just plain don't like something, they denigrate it. I find their video essays interesting form time-to-time but sometimes they posit wild inaccuracies (and for a long time they didn't allow comments on their videos as though their word was the only thing of worth). For example, they claimed 'Barry Lyndon' was entirely shot with natural light. Well, that ignores the fact that not only was it shot with artificial light, there's a couple of flubs in the film where you can see bloody great big lights outside of the window (see the restaurant scene). I think if they come across as fascist by devaluing contemporary art, it's not intentional; it's simply because they're overreaching. They simply don't understand it, and, as couple, I get the impression they've created a bit of an echo chamber for themselves.

"We're In Hell" has also spoken about this piece in one of his videos

Great on you for sharing your thoughts, just hope they don't mute their comments again after this

I do think the fact the piece was misinterpreted by the public is kind of representative of a "failure" within the piece but not necessarily from the artists maybe from the public or both. Maybe the public lacked the culture and experience necessary to understand it as intended or maybe the intended meaning by the authors is too specific to apply to this piece. But what strikes me is that this piece is just wonderful in its execution and the "failure" is not fatal, maybe beneficial even. It makes you think and give you profound emotions when you see it first. I was thinking of self harm when I saw it at first, like the robot was representative of a vicious cycle of self harm specifically in a mental health context. Both the popular and artist ascribed meaning are very thought provoking too. I cannot help but find this piece astonishing and haunting and this to me makes it good art. It's installation art at the intersection between sculpture and choreography in a wayi didn't even know was possible.

I've been a fan of The Cinema Cartography since their days as Channel Criswell and Art Regards. I still consider them one of my favorite UKposts channels, but lately there videos have been a little, elitist so to say. I love how they fixate on the artistic values of cinema, something I try to do on my own channel that not a lot of movie related content on the platform focuses on. Yet they got some well deserved flack for their degeneracy video. Rather than discuss what their subjective definition of degeneracy is or even the artistic merits of degeneracy (like a John Waters film) it came off more as an intellectualized boomer-rant about how art and culture suck now.

Could you make a video reflecting on cutism? I would be very intrigued to see it

This is just an incredible piece. I got to have three very distinct interpretations during your description: 1. Oh no, sad robot mirroring futility of life under capitalism 2. Oh, interesting, the artists that created this live under an authoritarian regime. I wonder what themes they will explore? 3. Oh... the movements seem sinister now, shaking terribly like a giant metal beast, lunging and slashing... oh...

Bad call on the carographer's part to choose the single most touching wellknown artwork of the past decade as a background for their thesis...

I subscribed to Cinema Cartography before they uploaded that video, and I unsubscribed when they did. I have yet to see a video essay where the writer unironically uses that word and even makes an attempt at engaging with the art they're bitching about in good faith, or why such art movements come about.

cool video, thank you for making this! :D

That video made me really angry at the pseudo-deepness that fascists like to spit at people who are too ignorant to know it's all BS so I'm glad people are responding to it.

Brilliant analysis. Thank you.

Seeing it writhe in between those raking motions… it’s truly hard to see it as the mechanized arm of an authoritarian state. The way the piece is presented, the meaning is impossible to decipher without a guidebook or easily misinterpreted- clearly, as the internet has proven here. In that sense, I think Cinemacartography’s frustrations project better onto the medium of modern art rather than this piece itself in particular. This piece being unfairly targeted, because of the very things that make it a good piece of modern art- and perhaps, the very things they are frustrated about.

was trying to write a report on this instillation so i plan to quote this a few times. thank you!

I think when I first saw this piece, I cried. I saw it as an exact mirror of the human condition. I felt so bad for this machine, and still do. It's a little disturbing in a way - to have it on display while it "bleeds out" and struggles to survive. People saunter by. Watch for a little bit, and move on.

The cut to people talking in the gallery is inspired. Most likely to voice their opinions on the meaning they find in the piece.

The unfortunate thing about Chinese rebels, is that many of them think the alternative is American style fascism

the work to me seems more to do with our reaction to it than the thing itself. how we react tells more about us than some would like.

Lord have mercy on anyone who started this video stoned. Ya’ll gonna make me ugly cry watching that robot for damn near 10 minutes struggle for life

It literally "sucks the beauty and joy out of life". I've watched this thing much too long already.

what is your 2nd channel? (this one rocks).

Hey, I didnt know you did streams thats cool. On to the topic of the video, I watched a lot of Cinema Cartography back in the day and they do think they make hood videos on film. In their video, "everything is dying" Lewis, the male member if the channel, described his philosophy and political views as a combination of anarcho-primitivism and law and-order libertarianism which is where this reactionary tendency comes from. They also both believe art quality is objective which is probably why they both feel so strongly about the "decline of art and film". Its funny really before the degeneracy video they made a video on why video games should be considered art. Will check out your streams if i get that time. I may not always agree with your takes, but i certainly appreciate your perspective.

Yeah, anyone going around saying 'degeneracy' is a massive red flag, as other people have stated before. There's really only one type of person that becomes so attached to calling things degenerate, and they're certainly not admirable in the slightest. Having said that, thanks for the upload.

Like most my original interpretation is one of the futility and banality of work under post-industrial capitalism. That said, the idea of the robot as the impersonalized apparatuses of the modern state trying to sweep up the evidence - as it grows more and more blatant to the gawping public - that the comforts of modern civilization, like the Guggenheim, are built over and in fact depend on the brutalization of countless people outside the confines of the state, is really gripping. Especially these days.

Ironically as we have failed as human species we may transfer finding the meaning of life to AI's a new Sisyphus in creation

I see it as a display of the futile cruelty of borders. We always try to contain people, to put up walls and checkpoints, and as technology has improved we have made these borders even more efficient--but a little bit always gets through. The movement of people is never stopped, and the machine will always break down eventually.

It's sad that the cinema cartography used to have really good videos. Their earlier stuff about cinematography, composition, and such is great; but they really should have stuck to cinema. It's disappointing.

The Sisyphusian task of searching for meaning in everything encountered in life is often a chore I avoid more and more as I get older. In an art gallery, reading the little card next to the art piece can be a starting point for understanding, but titles and labels sometimes obfuscate, and I am willing to accept the mystery and just move on without answers.

other channel that gives me fash vibes is a channel that goes by "Art Chad".

Ooh beefy drama between my favorite art channels

Yes, Sisyphus was the first thing thing I thought about; although, in the Greek myth, the hill is too steep and he can't get it up to the top (if he were to actually do so, he could stop). Anthropomorphism comes in many forms. Draping our human emotions on an inanimate (though moving) object, is just another form of this. The robot is a mechanical device carrying out its programming. I can appreciate its Sisyphean efforts, but I do not feel sorry for it. I wouldn't have equated it to authoritarianism without the creators' statement. I am an old man & most of my life has been wasted by a psychological trap I was ensnared by in my youth. My fine motor controls (read my hands) are pretty much shot, so I no longer able to write or draw. Despite this, I still get up every day, practice the piano (4 months into it), read mostly (European Modernist) novels & esoteric works (currently Gurdjieff) & go to sleep where I can involve myself in lucid dreaming. While I may be looking forward to the sweet relief of death, I am not rushing towards it. Life, & its meaning, is what you make it. When life changes (or your understanding of it), then take that in stride & change as well.

I know it's a robot but the way it moves strikes me as so... Sad. It makes me feel like it's in pain, like it's scooping the blood and it's back hurts from being bent down to the ground and it's stretching up to try and stop none existent muscles from hurting, the way it occasionally goes up and just spins around feeling like it's crying out and shaking a fist at the sky and at god. It hurts me to watch it, frankly. I imagine it as a woman, scrambling and crying and whaling in her misery. I love her, and it hurts do much to watch

I don't think I could look at any work of man and not see in it, somewhere, a mirror. All acts of creation carry meaning and intentionality. Some are better at their communication than others, and some attempt to communicate ideas that I enjoy more than others, but there is always some place to find empathy with the creator. I don't know if the "degeneracy" arguments come from a perspective truly alien to my own or if they are made by people who don't fully understand (or simply don't wish to communicate directly) their own feelings. Anyway, contemporary art looks cool and I like it. I like ideas, and I like seeing those ideas manifested.

I would never intentionally make a generalization, such as 'all modern art is degenerate'. I do find the art market, as it exists today, offensive- it all feels so transactional - it's all about investment value. And I find people like Jeff Koons, and to some degree, Kaws, shallow and commercial. Then, God help us, there's Thomas Kinkade... If people genuinely love one of these people - cool. I find 'Can't Help Myself' to be an important piece, which you well-defended. I do have a real problem with censoring art, or dismissing all modern works as degenerate. I saw the CC episode, and many of those commenting on my response totally misunderstood, which was my fault, no doubt. However, art is something I take fairly seriously, and I've read several books and seen films that tell of the times art has been attacked by the public - or, the government. As just 'for instance'; I doubt many Germans are proud of the 'Entartete Kunst', or New Yorker's of Mayor Giuliani ordering the Brooklyn Museum to take Chris Oili's 'Holy Virgin Mary' down, or our recent bans on literature. Thanks you, for all these videos. What you have to say is important. :)

thank you

germinal beef? Germinal beef!

NO! Her name was not Mona Lisa, nor Gherrardini, and even less Del Giocondo, but Isabella of Aragona and Sforza, also known as Isabella of Milan. She was born a princess as she was the daughter of Alfonso II of Aragona, king of Naples, and Ippolita Sforza. She was made to marry her cousin Gian Galeazzo Sforza to strengthen ties between the kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan. After the mysterious death of her young husband, she became emotionally close to Leonardo da Vinci who also lived at the court of Milan as he was in the service of the Duke of Milan and with whom, according to the studies of the German historian Maike Vogt-Lüerssen, they had several children together. My location of the landscape which, moreover, is not Italian would confirm that it would indeed be this princess who also had Spanish origins.

I rather like this piece a lot, but my interpretation is a bit different than most I've heard (and it certainly isn't an example of degeneration, a fascistic dogwhistle to be sure). I don't see it at all as "the arm of the state," however I don't see it as representing us either. There are postures and movements this robotic arm that remind me very much of the 1914 Gertie the Dinosaur animation by Windsor McKay, where a cartoon dinosaur performs tricks for the audience, but also revels in some whimsical "dances." If it were attempting to contain its own blood I would expect something more frantic and constant rather than the playful twists and spins it acts out. Also the blood to me seems more motor oil than human blood and therefore, while the metaphor is certainly clear, the empathic connection isn't quite as direct as it ought to be if that were the point. So ultimately, and especially that it is behind glass, I have much empathy for it as a living thing, but the life it leads is one of performativity, like say a circus monkey etc. It's sad that it dies. Maybe it should have been set free.

Heres my 2 cents its ok to be unsure, its ok to be scared, its ok to be confused. There is no objective meaning ergo you can keep searching and make your own meaning. Its both liberaring but terrifyling exhausting.

Degenerate? Whew. A sickening concept. For me, this piece is bursting with meanings and all refer to the human condition. I first thought of all the blood spilled as we variously murder our fellow beings. All the effort in the world will not clean up what we have done. Poor little robot, i.e. us.We are Sisyphus. A brilliant work of art, I say.

Ce robot ne connait pas la survie, c'est probablement une symbolisation insensée de la robotisation industrielle

Glad you are assuming a left stance. One long standing left stance is realism. So besides making commercial movies in capitalism, just looking at for example a cellphone movie what is that realism? Obviously it has little exchange value but generally speaking looks real. This appearance belies that whatever the movie records the reality is not the same as the movie. Further, the home movie does look like what the person has seen. Yet what is lost is a bit difficult to wrap one’s head about. Even if the recording say is in a room and the recording is constructed to look like that space is that a realism? The answer reflects upon if I use language to tell you about what the tool did to reproduce the room space. So reproducing the room space is not a human knowing the space nor a human telling another human about the space. This then means a tool like a motion picture can’t address a basic sort of realism humans do by using conversation. We tend to give visual art like a movie a free pass about its realism. That realism falls short of conversation, and the question of that realism is unexplored.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

un oh away

If the robot is to be anthropomorphized, I must confess that I have never seen a person move similarly and talk about having no meaningful life. Unrelated but the overwhelming majority of youtube content re: chinese art is limited to works about the authoritarian regime of CCP, or at least interpretations in relation to the CCP regime which is concerning. Or maybe these chinese artists just have nothing else to talk about. Or maybe nobody cares about anything else they have to talk about.

oh shi is this a war ? i havent even watched the vis yet but ohhhh shiiiii haha im messing around good vibes here only duhhh

I just watched the referenced video by The Cinema Cartography and I want to write a comment. I do think that their video makes a point about superficiality, spectacle and contemporary art being easily to digest, which I somewhat do understand to a certain degree; but it also dismisses lots(!) of superficial historical art lol. I actually do think that Can't Help Myself definitely is not the most deep artwork out there, and it is quite a lot of spectacle and one can project various things into it, but it certainly produces interesting reactions and analyses, and it definitely isn't "degenerate". The point that their video makes is not the best point or sth lol, but yeah. They seem to have a background in film, so maybe not the best subject position to talk about Can't Help Myself anyways, but idk. They do explicitly make anti-capitalist points and I therefore definitely don't think that it comes from a point of fascism. (I also never had that impression when watching their previous videos. I would assume that in the genuine case of fascism, their content would be way different.) It also seems very remarkable to me that they called this video "d e g e n e r a c y", instead of "degeneracy", indicating a less serious tone. (On the other hand, this clashes with the serious tone of the video?) Still, especially as being German myself, the term "degenerate" definitely has nazi vibes to it, and it has a nazi history to it, and therefore one shouldn't use it, but I also think that discussions surrounding these terms might be particularly different in Germany with more caution regarding our history that I don't want to judge people from other countries for. Generally, weird title for any video. I personally also don't think that this really really short clip of the Can't Help Myself robot within the video should be overanalyzed too much; when contextualized in the whole: some of the clips used in their video do match the voiceover, some don't, and I don't think that there is enough evidence to definitely indicate a matching audio and visual at this particular point, but still, I do get your argument and I am ambivalent about it. Their video is a very short one and no in-depth discussion, not even referencing any academic literature (which for me would be the basis for judging the quality of a video essay). It's certainly not their best video, but I also don't think that it's facist or sth. A little bit of in-depth research certainly would have helped their video, and ironically would have actually fitted their argument against superficiality. But anyways, interesting words in this very video here on the Can't Help Myself artwork :) The UKposts Channel We're In Hell also did a very interesting video about it.

I've never been interested about art that has an OBVIOUS message, an agenda, especially something political. As an an abstract expressionist, I make art that is about paint and other types of media, and subject matter that can only be expressed by very skilled painters. This subject matter that is so difficult to find and then define. "can't help myself" is brilliant for the most part and I haven' seen it in person. To me it looks like it has some 'decorative embellishments" which is a big no-no for a piece like this. If it's goal is to survive by dragging fluid into itself, why would it perform/waste it's energy on silly movements? It makes so many clown movements. If I made this, it would be frantically scooping that oil into itself you would be sure it would it had minutes to live. 👉 LOOK at my work as an example. ty

The category "authoritarism" is very flawed. It was created to put nazism/fascism and communism under the same classification, two opposing ideologies, including in the sense they fought wars against one another. When the classification represent two different, opposing things, it is a bad scientific category. It has the added flaw of putting US and European ideologies as being neutral, normal or the bastion of liberty (the opposite of authoritarism). When it couldn't be farther from the truth. Not only the US is so undemocratic that there's no correlation between popular opinion and policy approval on legislation, US and Europe are and have been extremely authoritarian, specially outside its borders - imperialism. So authoritarianism is a very ideological term that has a little capability of explaining reality. For example, one reason China is "authoritarian" today, including its vigilance over thought, is because western powers are very good at orchastrating coups. Using all kind of anti-scientific and anti-progress tactics imaginable, like fake news, denying climate change and anti-vaxxers. Countries like Brazil, now Argentina, have received all forms of toxic ideology from western nations - people die because those people gather political powers, structures of social security are dismatled, etc. So authoritarian measures of countries like Cuba, North Korea, etc. are self defense mechanism against nations that the concept of "authoritarianism" does not consider "authoritarian" - because it used as an ideological term. And just how technology can hide the true human, social, forces behind authoritarian systems of violence, the metaphor of Sisyphus' rock in our lives in late stage capitalism, hides the forces of late stage capitalism: the social form - capital in the privately owned means of production. If we wake up to find a rock every day, we need to ask who put that rock there and who's making it come tumbling down. In Sisyphus case it was Hades, the only way to end the eternal punishment is to leave the underworld. So the only way to remove our rocks is to fight to overcome capitalism, into a different mode of production not determined by capital, but by ourselves.

robot

my problem with this is that the meaning has been defined by critics and other people rather than the artists themselves. Also, I believe art should speak for itself and even if the artists explained it I wouldn't have liked it because they should've put that meaning into the artwork itself so that it's self explanatory. Further research should only be able to expand your appreciation for a work of art, not create it

the clip from your livestream seems to imply that any use of the term "degenerate" to describe art is illegitimate/fascist. Is it never a legitimate assessment? is there no degerate art? by describing how "cant help myself" is not degenerate, you seem to imply that a piece of art *could* be; otherwise why not simply debunk it categorically? what would it mean to you for a piece of art to be degenerate?

As a rule I don't like contemporary art, the way I appreciate art is mostly aesthetic. That said, the idea that current art is somehow consumerist when the art of the past (what past?) is more meaningful seems anachronistic and arbitrary to me. All artistic production is in the divided between freespirit and comencial demand.

That robot is an addict, just like the rest of us.

The Nazis detector worked again omg!

Sugar Pie Honey Bunch?

"Degenerate" just means "I am too stupid to understand this and it scares me."

1:09 isn't this more so a critique of captalism as opposed to a bad art take?

As a cinima cartography fan id like to think they are using it as an example of good contemporary art

Calling someone a fascist because they point out obvious flaws and lacking's of modern art. How silly. You should be ashamed of yourself.

That channel is SO pretentious

Feels like a cop-out to use chat from a live session to insert the word "fascist" when talking about another channel; "it wasn't me that asked, it was chat, I'm jUsT rEpEAtiNG it".

I have no problem labelling some art as degenerate. The Serbian Film is a prime example. This video piqued my interest in CinemaCartography