Frank Speiser

Currently there are efforts underway to rush the passage of PIPA and SOPA through Congress with no participation from the tech industry. Without listening to the participants who would inform the process, Congress risks passing very damaging legislation which could harm every American’s right to privacy, as well as stifle innovation within the tech community. 

Today, at my day job as CEO of SocialFlow, we’re going to join a number of other concerned partners in the tech community in urging you to write your congressional representation or blog about the proposed PIPA and SOPA legislative process. 

You can find out more at the Protect Innovation website (http://www.protectinovation.com/) or reading Vint Certf’s article here: http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/14/vint-cerf/

Thank You. 

Frank Speiser and
Your Friends at SocialFlow

I just got around to watching “Exit Through the Giftshop” - a Banksy film. As a movie, it disobeys just about everything you might expect a trained filmaker to do, and I mean that in a good way. The story was definitely unique. I can’t say I expected it to turn out like it did. It’s a good enough story on it’s own, but there’s something else in there which should serve as a giant flashing warning signal to all of us. 

The movie starts out with Thierry Guetta, who is basically a guy running a business in Los Angeles that supports his camera/filming habit. He films everything. Can’t stop filming. Along the way he stumbles across some street artists who catch his interest. This is notable, because the guy has an attention span of an 8 year-old kid raised solely by an XBox. He follows them around, mainly at night, going along on their capers and filming them always. Since the nature of street art is temporary, having someone there to capture not just the end product, but the process itself, was useful.

Thierry keeps feeding his addiction and looks for bigger and better art stunts to film. He links up with Shepard Fairey of “ObeyGiant” or “Obama Hope Poster” fame. Eventually he has a solid collection, but is missing the one artist who has established himself as the Big Dog of street art: Banksy, originating from the UK. 

Things start to get a little crazy here. Thierry proves himself as a stand-up guy after several run-ins with authorities, and he earns some credit from Banksy. He goes around world with these street artists breaking rules, calling people out, and getting it on tape (literally on tape, too). Thierry mortgages his business to enable him to do this, simply because he *loves* doing it. 

Eventually, as the street art movement is peaking and Banksy, Shepard Fairey and others are selling their art at record prices, Banksy encourages Thierry to finish his documentary about street art. Someone needs to tell the story of the real art he figures, hopefully saving the culture from being pwned (yeah, I did that) by a bunch of half-assed collectors with $700 scarves and botoxed asses. Basically, the people or their assistants shown shopping at Thierry Guetta’s store in the movie’s opening.

Thierry Guetta gets at it, even filming himself doing the editing of the film he is putting together. He puts the pieces together after five years of work, screens it for Bansky, and from what you can see in this movie - it was horrible. Banksy then encourages Thierry to make his own art and he jumps at the chance. He goes into it full bore, even mortgaging his house to set up a studio with a staff, and then goes into production with his own ideas. Most of which look a lot like what he saw while out filming. Some of his art is notable because he doesn’t always make iconic references to culture under a handle or tag (something like a pseudonym). Sometimes he just chooses to do really BIG iconographs of himself. Take THAT, hipsters. 

When Banksy sees this he is floored. He can’t believe the extent or the speed at which Thierry has progressed the operation of making street art. He’s put his whole life savings, house and business on the line to do this. Considering he’s never sold a single piece of art in his life, this is nuts. But the guy does it anyway, and uses some of the same techniques he saw people react to regarding street art as a means to promote and hype his art show. He turned quotes from Banksy and Fairey into icons themselves. 

In the run-up to the show, Thierry falls and breaks his foot, but he still pulls the show together with some help from Banksy’s friends on the ground in L.A. It seems pretty sloppy, but he does it.

For some reason, this success seems to both surprise and irk the street artists. What they proved to work was working, and they didn’t like it. Eventually they stop supporting Thierry, but it is too late. He sells millions of dollars of art and pop culture picks up on his work as “Mr. Brainwash”. 

The reason the artists dismiss Thierry? He didn’t “follow the rules” or “perfect his craft”. The same guys fighting closed-society propaganda and now becoming famous through those channels of propaganda accuse Thierry of not waiting his turn to speak. He didn’t spend years perfecting his craft, and because of that his “success” wasn’t warranted. 

But look at things this way: if “success” is defined as a public intrigued enough or amused enough to pay for a piece of art, then he was a success. A lot of people paid for it. On that front, apparently he was ready to go primetime - because he did, and the stuff sold. I wasn’t blown away by his art, but I was glad for the guy. It seemed like he might have made enough to cover a decent life for him and his family, and he might be free to try more of this thing he was doing. Being free to do what, even if you don’t do it how everyone else wishes you would seems like a decent goal. 

However, the hypocrisy is much deeper. If art isn’t judged by its commercial value, and indeed is about breaking through barriers erected to control or limit thought, how is it in anyone’s moral right to say who does and doesn’t deserve a voice? Sure, you can make a judgement call and say you like the art or not. That seems valid. While Banksy never explicitly says it, Shepard Fairey does say that Thierry didn’t perfect his message or spend enough time on his craft. They both at least imply that message. If these guys, after spending so much time thinking about authority and control, are making statements like that, we could have a real problem if we believed them. All of us. 

That problem is the dangerous pattern exposed: when someone does something different enough to be disruptive, the established channels of validation give that person or concept some “authority” in exchange for showing the desirable elements of that concept at the expense of the important elements. Then, instead of trading on merit, that new authority is used to limit competition and access to the spotlight, creating a dearth of newness, and we fall into patterns of proselytizing marginally differential ideas as change. In doing this, we limit ourselves. We’re not really searching something new, we’re just buying (via money or attention or time) something tolerable. That is bullshit. 

In the case of this movie, “art” is not what you’re told it is. It’s not even what you say it is. It’s what it is that you do. The person that is *doing* is expressing art. Everyone else is just watching. Some in trendier clothes than others. The lesson that can be extrapolated into life is that you don’t own the experience unless you’re doing it. Everyone can tell you what you should and should not do, but it’s not theirs to decide. You own your actions until you start letting people tell you what is acceptable to them. We’re at a point in culture and technology where it is acceptable to define social strata and to brand personas at the speed of light. Our ideas are put out to be judged by people who have no stake in the outcome, but a voice on the creation process. How much should this be valued? With more eyeballs on you, it becomes a race to the mean in terms of what is going to win you the most acceptance. Acceptance is a poor way to define success, and is not a way to define true change. 

So, while there are a lot of new ways to be judged and reviewed, the same old axiom is staring us right in the face. You can only advance when you’re willing to step outside what is considered acceptable and set up a new method or pattern. You can win and change the game (and your life) if you search for the truth in what you’re doing. If you search for reinforcement, you’re only ever going to be what they say you are, and I already said that was bullshit.