Re: Virtual Richey Manic

On 18 Aug 2004, at 18:39, Droog wrote:

> Oliver Moran wrote:
>
>> An exploration of Richey Edwards and Manic Street Preachers as a
>> cultural commodities and so their relationship to their fans. Richey,
>> now disappeared and presumed dead, notoriously cut the legend, ?4
>> REAL,? into his forearm as evidence to a journalist of the bands early
>> deliberately adversarial image.

Thus cleverly foreclosing any debate on how awful their music actually
was at the time.

>> Fan can use this site to recreate the
>> moment and place their own moniker in place of the original sign.
>
> Thats just utterly and absolutely wrong.And a violation against the
> family and friends of Richey Edwards.Shame on it.

Yes.

It's not the latest project from the idiots who put out that single
"Richey's Dead", is it?

- Rob.

I disagree with hostility about this project. How could mutilating one's
arm with 4REAL during an interview be received as anything but a
choreographed media performance? It's totally appropriate material for net
art. To me Virtual Richey Manic is a shining example of new millennium *web*
art speaking for a generation grown up on fan bbs and photoshop. It's a
seamless interfacing of celebrity, body, youth/adolescence, and nostalgia.
And nostalgia here isn't arbitrary flourish, it's entirely specific to the
histories of the artist and of the Internet. I can't defend the music
though, don't know much about it. I'm a slack judge in that dept anyway.

Kevin


On 8/18/04 2:35 PM, "Rob Myers" <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 18 Aug 2004, at 18:39, Droog wrote:
>
>> Oliver Moran wrote:
>>
>>> An exploration of Richey Edwards and Manic Street Preachers as a
>>> cultural commodities and so their relationship to their fans. Richey,
>>> now disappeared and presumed dead, notoriously cut the legend, ?4
>>> REAL,? into his forearm as evidence to a journalist of the bands early
>>> deliberately adversarial image.
>
> Thus cleverly foreclosing any debate on how awful their music actually
> was at the time.
>
>>> Fan can use this site to recreate the
>>> moment and place their own moniker in place of the original sign.
>>
>> Thats just utterly and absolutely wrong.And a violation against the
>> family and friends of Richey Edwards.Shame on it.
>
> Yes.
>
> It's not the latest project from the idiots who put out that single
> "Richey's Dead", is it?
>
> - Rob.
>
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