User:Lidia.Pereira/Trimesters/RWRM/IIIEssay

INTRODUCTION

Production of creative work of any kind comes often associated with research, both within the technical and the theoretical domains. This is no different from the approach I choose to take when I embark on a new project. Deeply influenced by my belief that neutrality in both art and design is a "burgeosie myth", as put by Roland Barthes, I often atempt to engage critically with the political, economical and cultural surroundings of the media landscape. The all-encompassing concept of ideology, particularly, is a difficult one to escape - otherwise known as "common sense", such designation testifies in favor of its successful representation as universal and of general interest. There's no possibility to talk about new economics within participatory culture without mentioning immaterial labor, and there's no way around class struggles when discussing labor and means of production. The space of the minorities within this so-called participatory culture is once again pervaded by ideological beliefs and stigmas. The friction between digital utopias and embodied realities is evocative of the power social construction represents when considering the subject, whose representation and perception of self are heavily defined by what, in Marxist theory, is called the superstructure. It is these tensions that I aim to further explore through my practice, in a delicate exercise to find balance between romanticist revolutionary naivety and downright disbelief in free will.