There has been so much happening this week that it seems impossible to write about anything else. As I write this entry, the "super Tuesday" results in the primaries are rolling in, but earlier in the week, a certain sports team brought disappointment to my doorstep and Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo!. At least the first and third topics would be fair game for this blog, but the first and second have occupied much of my mind. Two items that have caught my eye this week, however, have been:

• Lauren Cornell's review of Bad Beuys Entertainment on Rhizome.org: On the one hand, I enjoyed this review because of its subject rather than its substance - the clever name, the pointed use of video, and the approach of the collective (criticism through embrace). Yet the reason I cite the review rather than the collective is Cornell's brief observation that "[l]ong before the onset of video-sharing platforms, the [late 90s video work of the collective] would be an amazing Youtube find: an amateur homage to the culture industry that winds up as a critique not only of media's power, but our own consumption of it." In a way, an observation like this provides a glimmer of hope for a culture that increasingly looks to its YouTubes. These tools do indeed make it easier for more people to engage in cultural critique - knowingly or otherwise. Yet it is only through a type of nostalgia that we can see exactly what we are experiencing now.


• Jean Babtiste Bayle's MyOWNspace: admittedly, I did find this thanks to the previous item, but it is worthy of its own mention. MySpace is nothing if not an easy target for cultural and artistic criticism. There is an unrefined, raw, unselfconscious air about the site and its users' pages that lend themselves easily to parody and theoretical target practice. The site sports sorely dated designs in a design conscious Web 2.0 net-world, and relies on crude markups and hacks for users to personalize their little corners. MySpace is technostalgia alive and well. MyOWNspace serves as a particularly clever parody. The creator has fun in sending up every little detail, from the premise, to the Google ads. It is parody as it should be, fun yet insightful.