Comparative media research (From A-N)

There is something that caught my eye lately. I went down a rabbit hole of reading into The White Pube’s post on Instagram about Bluecoat’s latest exhibition, Just Browsing.

 

I lazily went to the comments and saw the several comments with the same trolley emoji, and erroneously assumed these were people copying off each other. I was later corrected on this mistake, so I read further into the situation, and saw opposing views. These aren’t necessarily right or wrong, but just different angles of looking at something.

 

I was comparing the two texts:

https://thewhitepube.co.uk/texts/2026/just-browsing/

https://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/whatson/just-browsing

 

The trolley emojis were temporarily turned from an emoji of ‘I’ve bought it’ to a symbol of ‘I’ve read it’. That makes it even more interesting from a research prospective.

The debate:

 

There’s a strong movement against Bluecoat of selling out.

 

However, I don’t believe it’s this simple. Bluecoat has a long history of curating shows with cultural depth. It’s probable that Just Browsing is a temporary gallery disruption, one that satirises mass consumption. David Shrigley’s work is satirical in nature. This makes me unlikely to believe that the gallery lapsed in judgment.

 

I believe that the institution intentionally curated to lampoon what is happening now, however, it’s backfired (but succeeded in creating a discourse), in the same vein to things which are over-satirised in culture, where meaning is lost in excessive irony. We can’t ignore the current overarching mood of anti-intellectualism, so there’s a chance that this show worked against the institution on this occasion, because there’s a general mistrust of institutions.

 

Finance and art

 

I was informed that it might have been a way for the gallery to write off taxes. It makes me want to understand and deconstruct why the intersection of art and money, specifically business is considered incongruous. Why does it make people angry when the two are held in the same space, specifically in a space where it’s associated with art?

Why is it uncomfortable to think of art institutions and universities as businesses?

 

I’ve noticed that art shows from ‘rebellious’ individual artists and collectives like BANK, which disrupt commercial spaces have a higher rate of acceptance from art-informed viewers, compared to institutions with established cultural capital (this extends to individual artists with associated institutionalised cultural capital), who are making shows in their spaces as shop simulations