A somewhat fustian review of mine in this week's Oxonian Review about a new book of essays on Kraftwerk.
What I didn't say in the review is that I'm in two minds about this sort of thing: on the one hand it's good to have a pop subject treated with this level of seriousness, but on the other there's the risk of calcification and institutionalization, of a kind of academic branding that is not so dissimilar to the fashionista-commodification I talk about in the review (and I realise that I'm totally complicit in this by throwing my own hat into the ring, although of course I didn't get paid for writing the piece, which as far as I'm concerned makes it just a slightly less self-indulgent, more detached form of blogging praxis).
Anyway, I hope it comes through that I tried to focus on what was meaningful in the message, man.
And actually part of the message is that the institution (the right sort) can be a redemptive force, right?
What I didn't say in the review is that I'm in two minds about this sort of thing: on the one hand it's good to have a pop subject treated with this level of seriousness, but on the other there's the risk of calcification and institutionalization, of a kind of academic branding that is not so dissimilar to the fashionista-commodification I talk about in the review (and I realise that I'm totally complicit in this by throwing my own hat into the ring, although of course I didn't get paid for writing the piece, which as far as I'm concerned makes it just a slightly less self-indulgent, more detached form of blogging praxis).
Anyway, I hope it comes through that I tried to focus on what was meaningful in the message, man.
And actually part of the message is that the institution (the right sort) can be a redemptive force, right?
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| Title: "Exactly the sort of casual co-option of someone else's aesthetic I abhor" (or, I'm a twat). |
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