Mark Amerika

Mark Amerika's letcure was interesting to say the least. Not being able to quite grasp everything he said was kind of irritating. The wording of his ideas and concepts was in my opinion more complicated than it had to be. Even still this is the true way of an artist. You think out of the box, and those around you do not understand you unless they know you and even still maybe not. Mark spoke on many different aspects of art today. He spoke a lot about where the movement of art seemed to be going. As most artists are taught to be creators and inovative agaoints convention, he explained that through corporate giants this has been almost exploited. Exploited to the point where no one is special anymore because they all are special. Everyone is programed to do the same thing, until nothing new is a surprise. I believe his argument was to take things further. Beyond what we usually understand or acknowlege. He presented a kind of poem that was more like free thought. Constantly moving, constantly changing subject. Stream of conciousness. His earlier work online functioned in a similar way except it was behavioral program that did the work for you. It was called Grammatron. It created sentences using various words to produce strange or fitting meanings. I disagree with him to a point that thinking outside the box ins't a step back into conformity, but a step forward in what artists should be more like. But selling out is bad in any profession.