🎒 531: Computation Aesthetics is a class taught by Charlie Roberts.
Analysis & review based on Carl Matheson’s essay, The Simpsons, Hyper-Irony, and the Meaning of Life
Musings
Upon reading this essay, I looked to technology’s role in the driving upheaval of authority and order. I think humans are incapable of positioning themselves within a non-homeostatic environment. To compensate for the dissolution of authority, we find comfort and consistency in knowing that we know more than the person next to us. However, this does not mean that art ever ended, as Danto pointed out, but rather technology and art seem to have hit their strides in the exponential curve of growth that to underlies all progress. This is proven no truer than by Danto himself, who was driven to his critique based on the work of Andy Warhol, which, in its own regards, was quotational and ironic. Warhol’s work clearly defines a turning point in art and it’s relationship to technology, but by no means is he the first. His commentary on consumerism grips to the coattails of Rene Magritte and other surrealists who unknowingly found a muse blooming from the helms of the Industrial Revolution. It is at this point which we look out to “the end of art” and realize that art has just begun.
In fact, art has not only begun, it has evolved. What was once a flip-book is now a full formed motion picture, fluidly transitioning from one scene to the next. As of right now, I do not believe the human mind is capable of locating itself in its own machinations. We are not new to this feeling though, and just as religion stems from our desire to bring order to our inception, we will find new ways to bring order to the rising climax of our existence. The question now becomes, do we do it alone? Art and by extension society, has solely relied on the prowess of the brain to further its existence, but in tough times we look to the world around us to craft tools from the amalgamation of our current understandings (i.e. past understandings) and the monolithic desire to know.
It will be slow at first, and like a baby learning language, we will falter, but I believe the next leg of our journey will not be completed alone. I believe we will soon find man’s new best friend to be in the form of Artificial Intelligence (AI). To hazard into a future without considering this possibility would be ruinous to society. To find proof for the future of AI, we need not look any farther than the present to find the future unevenly scattered about, warning of ulterior (?) intelligence, and if that is not enough the past only rings truer. It is without a doubt that our need to know is unquenchable, and with the only limiting factor on our dogged curiosity being time, it is a matter of generations before we find the human mind augmented by the power of sentient technology. And just as The Simpsons ushered in a new era of comedy, so too will the presence AI usher in a new era of art and society.
Analysis
Carl Matheson states that, in addition to the changes in technology, society, and racial views, modern-day comedies are vastly different from the comedies that came before them. This is due to the fact that comedies, like The Simpsons, depends on being quotational and hyper-ironic.
With his first point on quotationalism, Matheson is not attempting to say that it is a new technique being employed by the modern day comedy, but rather that early comedies used it opportunistically. When appropriate, it was used. This changed as The Simpsons began to rise in popularity. The show, which had a plot that was character driven, had no need to be quotational. However, its animated nature made it possible to quote almost anything, and that’s what it did, it quoted everything. On top of that, entire plotlines can be driven by one or more quotes being used as allusions to create economical narratives that are safely nestled between cultural references. All of this hinges on the viewer’s knowledge, and what is an intelligent work of fiction can quickly turn into an off-colored comedy with little substance or humor.
The second change in modern comedy is the use of hyper-irony, especially as it relates to a moral agenda. When watching The Simpsons one must ask, is the humor driving at anything greater than just laughs? The author looks both ways and says, yes there are times when the show hints at liberal values that sharply critique the morality du jour, but there are also many clarion points in the series when there is no agenda to be found. From this realization, one might not know what to think about The Simpsons, but Matheson does not leave it at that. He goes on to formulate an argument based on the “pervasive crisis of authority.” He believes that the answer to the shows moral agenda comes in the form of hyper-irony. There is no moral agenda because the show under-cuts most things it proposes, going so far as to undercut its cynical under-cuts. The crisis in authority led to relinquishing knowledge which drove people to want to know even if there is no ultimate truth. Again it could be argued that there is a moral agenda because the show must appease a prime-time audience, or because quite often, the irony is undercut by frequent happy endings, but Matheson counters once more by proposing that when The Simpsons does tackle moral issues it no longer becomes funny. The humor flourishes in the light of quotationalism an hyper-irony. Occasional happy endings, give the viewer hope and a desire to come back for more.