Cultural ideology and art -framing a cultural ideology based on societal practices essay example

Cultural Ideology and Art – Framing a Cultural Ideology Based on Societal Practices

Introduction
Cultural ideology and art based on societal practices looks at social production, cultural autonomy, theories, as well as late capitalism. The underpinnings of the academic exploration of this subject take into consideration art and culture as part of a dominant ideology as well as aesthetic autonomy. In this academic exercise answering these and other structured inquiry presented in this discourse, engage further considerations of the course texts of Halley, Halley, Halley, Valdez, and Nava as well as others in this field of cultural studies. In addition, this academic exploration and discourse offers examples from the texts of specific areas as offered in the headings with each of the section topics providing final paper topic on each of these perspectives.

Questions 1 a) Social Production of Art

According to Cascio, the social production of art includes artistic efforts ranging from finger paintings by children at home or in a classroom as the seeds of creativity depicting the world around them to such grandiose religious underpinnings as the work of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Social production of art may remember the past for political, cultural, religious, or historical reasons as well as predict the future for the same. Seeking social change remains another means social production of art impels humans for creative expression (2013). The following discourse looks at the course texts and the different authors’ views on this perspective of social production of art.
b) Examples from the Readings
Examples of social productions of art according to Halley, Valdez, and Nava (2001), include two views on this subject of art and culture. From a grassroots perspective, social production of art means a ” socially rational approach to art.” Thus, from this perspective, using the example of a Mexican-American ” Chicano” point of view, social production of art ” tends to emphasize indigenous voices connected to the community. Typically, the artists tend living in the community, and therefore, draw the interest of the people as the primary audience, participation as staff from the community, as well as what feeds the vitality, ” and its commitment to innovation and cutting-edge artistic performances (p. 198-199).
The other type of social production of the arts again, looking at the changes taking place when the previously described Chicano community arts center acquired large national grants an entirely different type of social production of the arts ensued. This type of funding led to bureaucratic reorganization of the Center transforming it from its initial intention to maintain representation through the arts of the individual and rich characteristics of the local people diverted into something else more universal and thus, less grassroots. According to Weber (1947), ” the analysis of the transformation focused on the problem posed by the rationalization of activities that are value-oriented, through the imposition of instrumental rationality on the domain of cultural expression and affirmation, essentially substituting quantity for quality (as cited by Halley, Valdez, & Nava, 2001, p. 199). Halley (2001) establishes how the social production of art differentiates from studying other aspects of society looks at the ” history of the sociology of art.” This exemplifying social production of art makes the distinction of historically ” as part of a collective process of self-reflection, and the view of art as a cultural institution within an institutional order.” The collective self-reflection of art aligns to morality and ” moral reflection tied to critical thought and action” and remains the ” most relevant to the study of avant-garde art” as it pertains to a certain aspect of ” a confrontation with society, that is, as action intended to operate on the very notion of ‘boundary.'” From the social production point of view of art as means for challenging the status quo of society, looks at the connection of art with offering ” a liberating force (p. 221).” In addition, according to Wolf (1981) productions of art ” (is) the product of specific historical practices on the part of identifiable social groups, in given conditions of existence of those groups, and their representatives in particular artists (p. 49).”
c) Other Examples (own)
An example of social production of art looks at how Joseph Stalin incorporated architecture ideas of an ” empire style” social propaganda espousing the dominance of the Soviet Union’s communism not only to the citizens of the Soviet Union but to the global community in general. Other examples of social production of art for criticizing social politics is Picasso’s painting ” Guernica” as a condemning response to the German bombing of the village. Another example of socially led production of art is the work of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros as Los Tres Grandes creating vast murals honoring socialism.
d) Strengths and Limitations
As a strength, Halley (2008) again, looks at the social production of art as evinced by Schiller, who claims how anything (art) educating the people does so because of ” the availability to all people, regardless of social background, of the ability to enjoy and build upon their experiences” (sic) through such engagement as anything artistic, including wine tasting (p. 3). The limitations of art as a social production for educating people, conversely looks at the limitations of the process as it too often pertains to the unavailability for access to learning from artistic productions with a great deal of this pertaining to the very people globally who have the need for the consciousness raising properties of artistic endeavors.
e) Final Paper Topic on the Perspective
A final paper topic on the perspective of the social production of art suggests, ” How social production of art emerges in an ever growing technically embedded society.”

Question 2 Ideology

Understanding ideology in general contributes to clarifying the understanding of how ideology pertains to a dominant ideology of art and culture. Hoernlé (1927) offers how the original term of ” Idea” derives from Plato’s philosophical discourse from some of the 5th Century B. C. philosophical and scientific writers. A more recent historical Latin adjective, ” idealis” coming after the demise of the Roman Empire (who took the Greek word ” idea” as part of Roman philosophical language). For the purpose of this academic discourse the heart of the meaning of ideology therefore, looks to how supreme value, a pattern, or standard, pertaining to excellence, and perfection describes ideology (p. 46). Therefore, the ideology of art and culture looks at universal formats of the concept as expressed in the 21st century.
– Authors’ Views
Wolf (1981) explains, ” Put most simply, the theory of ideology states that the ideas and beliefs people have are systematically related to their actual and material conditions of existence (p. 50).” Halley (2008) describes ideology of art and culture as a process of distinguishing between knowledge and appreciation. Halley (2008) suggests it is Kant who views the aesthetic judgment aligned with ideology of art and culture as ” an agreement with others, and in this sense is always inter-subjective, linking us to a community in sociality (p. 1). Stecker (2005) offers another view on cultural studies aligned with ideology as, ” The scope of cultural studies extends to the practices and institutions of society at large. Third, at least the dominant view within cultural studies embraces a specific ideology and political program (p. 231).”
Looking at ideology of art and culture from the view of Halley, Valdez, and Nava (2001) posits with the difference between formal rationality versus a kind of ideological process therefore explain how technology, science, and bureaucracy represent formal rationality by orienting related actions to formal rules, calculations, privileges and control. Conversely, the orientation of substantive rationality lay in the needs and values as an ideology of art and culture (p. 199).
– Art and Culture as Part of Dominant Ideology
An example of art and culture as part of a dominant ideology taking a deconstruction of the concept looks at Siraganian (2011) describing the distinctive poetry style of Olson’s ” Projective Verse” (1950). The outcome dramatically breaks from the dominant American ideology of art and culture in a time when doing so by emphasizing the value of the immigrant perspective was definitely anti-de rigueur. In his work, according to Siraganian (2011) his ” conception of the particularity of immigrant perspectives as central to twentieth-century American culture and citizenship, ideas entirely compatible with his 1940s government and party politics work in which he targeted specific groups of immigrant Americans instead of speaking to all Americans as undifferentiated citizens. ” In other words, ” His point is to find meaning in actual American immigrant perspectives because they are obviously particular, permitting him to avoid universal notions of political identity. According to this logic, immigrant perspectives are valued precisely because they must be located in the world, circumventing the universalizing rhetoric of citizenship (p. 142).” The point of this deconstruction of the culture of the dominant makes a better point of how artistic endeavors such as Olsen going against the norm provide historical significance as a representation of the truest form of artistic expression taking marginalized groups in dominant communities and thus, juxtaposing their position as equal to the recognized dominant culture. The irony projects from the fact the dominant culture of America remains an amalgamation of distinctly different cultures as an ongoing process today affecting art.
– Examples from Readings
Halley (2008) reminds how Kant’s ” underscoring the formal universality of the judgment of taste, holds open a future or present that goes beyond the culture of the dominant.” Therefore, ” If one only sees the world in terms of an already conceived grid of status distinction and habitus, then nothing new can ever be learned or experienced, and what has been experienced can never again be new.” This type of closure exudes from museums. Art remains a standard for moving beyond rationalization of the culture of the dominant thus, allowing ” the possibility to experience culture as something new and unique, beyond rationalization.” With those in society speaking ” of art and culture as ‘middle-brow’ (means it is) to already accept a hierarchy imposed by the dominant system.” Thus, requiring ” we need to respect how people actually experience and are artful in their everyday practice, and to be more aware of the relationship, beyond any and all attempts to rationalize it between experience and an enchantment of life (p. 19).” Halley (1981) explains how the ideology of capitalism as first, an industrialized culture changed the face of art into a technological perspective aligned with media and later, television and, today the Internet (p. 137-153). Wolf (1981) offers a view that art and culture is not so simply affected by a dominant ideology, ” The so-called ‘dominant ideology’ of a society is never monolithic or totally pervasive (p. 53).” inal Paper Topic Perspective of Ideology

Question 3 Cultural Autonomy

Cultural autonomy as an artistic expression historically proves consistent. According to Tanner (2003), ” In fact, on this point the ‘believers’ are entirely right in opposition to reductive sociology when they insist on the autonomy of the artist and in particular, on the autonomy that results from the specific history of art (p. 97).” Further, according to Horkheimer (1941), ” Art, since it became autonomous, has preserved the utopia that evaporated from religion (p. 291, as cited by Halley, 2001, p. 221).” Further, Tanner (2003) explains how cultural autonomy connected to the sociology of art looks at the correctness of opposing views, ” to reductive sociology when they insist on the autonomy of the artist and in particular, on the autonomy that results from the specific history of art (p. 97).”
– Culture, Material Conditions, and Autonomy
Again, particularly in the Western civilizations, cultural autonomy connection to art historically proved aligned to material conditions. With the Renaissance, the material conditions of societies in some Western cultures aligned with Christianity before the Reformation proved the cradle of evolutionary art distinctions in the early masters of Michelangelo and Di Vinci. With each of the ensuing art forms aligned to religious themes material conditions of society proved a pivotal influence. Not until the emergence of contemporary or modern art did the full measure of culture, material conditions, and autonomy emerge as part of the social production of art. Halley (1981) explains, how ” the industrialization of culture, ideology, and forms of cultural resistance
– Second part – Aesthetic Autonomy
Siriganian (2011) explains how to a certain degree, ” autonomy has remained critical, but increasingly bureaucratic and social.” This emerges as the process of how ” Shaping or situating an experience replaces representing an experience (p. 183).” In other words, alluding to the function of museums as a bureaucratic and social process for compartmentalizing aesthetic autonomy culturally through art becomes the underpinnings of bureaucracy – a kind of paradox.
– Examples from Readings
Halley (2008) explains as the world continued rationalizing the loss of the control over the objects of life meant from the esthetic perspective some control remains. This gives people subjective autonomy based on the past and the potential found in the imagery of a future. In this process, Halley (2008) further extols how ” Aesthetic judgment is that part of experience
in which people give meaning and purpose by naming things, and, by so doing, appropriating them in a subjectively valid way (p. 2).” Cultural and artistic aesthetic autonomy becomes an individual process initially.

A final paper topic on cultural autonomy includes, ” How globalization remains a threat to cultural autonomy.”

Question 4 – a) Cultural Reception Theories
Cultural reception theories look at audiences or the populace receptivity or acceptance to and about culture aligned to capitalism as exemplified in television broadcasting such as sports events (Halley, 1981, p. 140-143). Halley (2008) also looks at cultural reception to wines aligned to capitalism and industry venues (p. 4).
– Strengths, Limitations and Examples from Readings
The strengths of cultural reception theories such as posited by Hirsch ” at least problematized the question of subjectivity in the process. The limitations of Hirsch’s receptivity theory remains when looking at Dadaism a matter of losing the novelty of the art form in the process of emphasizing it as an exclusive one. This according to Halley (1996) is the fundamental shortcoming of Hirsch’s theory (p. 225). In art, the process exhibited by such movements as the Avant guard Dada movement looks at three stages as described by Halley (1996) and cultural reception. The Dadaists rejected the culture of the early turn of the 20th century coming up with their own art form ridiculing the culture and working through zany art forms to demolish it through attacks on education, the idea of art, good taste, and fairly most of the established order of society. Thus, the theory of reception uses Dadaism as its example. The outcome for cultural reception theories looked at the sense of meaning of art connected to culture and the consequent sensibility with four criteria. First, the origins of the art, second, its novelty, third, the extent of receptivity to the structure of the art, and finally, the historical context of its reception outline cultural reception. Hirsch (1967) posits the theory of reception as how ” we can recover the original meaning of a work regardless where we stand in history (as cited by Halley, 1981, p. 225)”.
– Personal Examples
Cultural reception theory applies to the new technologies. While the younger generations grew up with technology, the Baby Boomers are only coming into their own with receptive attitudes toward the plethora of the technological culture of today. The advent of 3D movie theaters while having its own receptive audiences never had the massive cultural response and receptivity envisioned.

A final paper topic on cultural receptive perspective includes ” Changing Views of Mainstream America Toward Cultural Receptivity of Muslim Americans”

Question 5 – Culture in Late Capitalism
According to Halley (1981), ” Culture is not only limited by capital, but is a social and material process constituted by entire social relations of capitalism.” Therefore, capitalism’s ” incursion into all forms of everyday life (culture)” must account how ” labor, resistance, and critical consciousness” of the masses contribute to the changing nature of culture in modern society (p 151). Ewen (1976) contends, ” The mass marketing of culture is part of the way in which capitalism regulates consciousness (as cited by Halley, 1981, p. 140).”
– Culture Industry
In late capitalism, according to Halley (1981) ” it is no accident television takes the form that it does in late capitalism.” Horkheimer and Adorno (1972) describe how this phenomena results in ” the degradation of culture to what has been called ‘the culture industry (as cited by Halley, 1981, p. 140).'”
– Second Part – Effect on Art and Culture
In other words, the effect of culture industry on art and culture according to Halley (1981) shows ” the industrialization of culture degrades because culture no longer expresses human hope, but rather ratifies the logic of capitalist exploitation and meaningless consumption.” The cultural liberatory focus of the past is the core of the degradation (p. 140). Historically, both culture and art typically ” upheld the existing social order” without ideology being the sole precept. Prior to the onset of late capitalism, as described by Halley (1981), culture was relatively autonomous to the system of production” as well as to the creation of art with the ability for criticizing society (p. 141). Horkheimer (1972) explains, ” art since it became autonomous, and had preserved the utopia that evaporated from religion (p. 275, as cited by Halley, 1981, p. 141).”
b)Dominant Ideology in Art and Culture
Under culture of late capitalism as the dominant ideology art and culture now, become commodities according to Halley (1981). He explains how late capitalism proves the subordination of culture and art as industrialized to the point of the destruction of ” artisanal modes of cultural production.” Aronowitz (1979), views the art form of film as a late capitalist product because of how film ” achieves at the sphere of consumption (p. 115, as cited by Halley, 1981, p. 143).” It is the forward movement of film in comparison to a novel, which allows pause for reflection and thus, takes away the audiences’ ability for artistic and cultural criticism (Halley, 1981, p. 143). Further, Halley (1981) suggests that dominant ideology in art and culture remain dominated by specific cultural practices and structures through complexities including set topics and limits. Dominant ideology in art and culture remain the realms of Western capitalism (p. 144).
b)-Second Part -Where to Find It and Its Operational Characteristics
Locating dominate, art and cultural ideology merely requires looking at where mass media exists. Sahin (1979) and Schiller (1976) explain anywhere on the globe with introduction of television to dependent nations exist the ” package” introduces set professional norms, definitions, as well as assumptions appearing as ” universal” and neutral when that is the farthest from reality. This example substantiates how Western capitalism secures domination both culturally and economically by undermining the cultural autonomy of these nations no matter their politics or standing in the global community (as cited by Halley, 1981, p. 145).
c)-Forms of Resistance to Dominant Ideology
Halley (1981) stresses how ” cultural resistance” to dominant ideology ” cannot be derived from knowledge of political economy itself” due to any incorrect assumption that ” a monolithic, one-dimensional consciousness” exists (p. 147). Halley (2008) discusses how resistance to rationality of art theories wards off the mundane (p. 3). Halley, Valdez, and Nava (2001) entire article on ” Resistance to the Bureaucratization of Culture: Lessons from the Chicano Arts Scene” provides one Southwestern United States Mexican American-Chicano culture and art ongoing resistance to dominant ideology through grassroots indigenous artistic centers with theatre, multi-medium arts, and dance projects.
d) Three Final Paper Topics on Culture in Late Capitalism
1) How does the culture industry in late capitalism bridge global diversity?
2) What are the positive effects of dominant ideology in art and culture in the film and book publishing industry?
3) How does the influence of global immigration of cultures into dominant capitalistic societies create resistance to dominant artistic ideologies?

Conclusion

In conclusion, as stated in the introduction cultural ideology and art based on societal practices looks at social production, cultural autonomy, theories, as well as late capitalism explaining the status of the world. As discussed in this academic investigation answering the specific questions outlined for this document the topic is complex and multi-faceted. With the inclusion of further research questions for each of the perspectives presented, the topic continues evolving in the 21st century with changing characteristics while other remain embedded in the underpinnings of capitalism driven by technological marketing affecting art and culture globally.

References

Cascio, K. (2013). Art Production: The Role of Creating Art in the Classroom. Retrieved from
http://art. unt. edu/ntieva/pages/teaching/tea_comp_artproduction. html
Halley, J. (2008). Gaudez, F. (Ed). Mondo Vino Rationalization and Resistance in the Sphere of Wine. A Middle-Brow Art Today. 1
Halley, J., Valdez, J. A., & Nava, S. (2001). Resistance to the Bureaucratization of Culture: Lessons from the Chicano Arts Scene. Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society; Fall 2001; 31, 3; ProQuest Research Library
Halley, J. (1981). Chapter 5: Culture in Late Capitalism. Political Economy: A Critique of American Society. McNall, S. G. (Ed). Scott, Foresman and Company Glenview, IL
Halley, J. (1996). Avant-Gardes and Their Reception. Current Perspectives in Social Theory. 16, p 221-236. Copyright 1996 by JAI Press, Inc.
Hoernlé, R. F. A. (1927) Idealism as a Philosophy. New York: George H. Doran. p. 46
Siraganian, L. (2011). Modernism’s Other Work: The Art Object’s Political Life. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Tanner, J. (Ed.). (2003). The Sociology of Art: A Reader. London: Routledge.
Wolf, J. (1981). The Social Production of Art. New York University Press.