Mass Art and Contemporaneity

Our way of manifestations over time changed a lot with the help of mass production techniques
that allowed more and more people to get in touch with visuals. In our times, during the
protests mass art is represented by messages, caricatures, symbols, banners that depicts the
thematic of the protests or insults towards authorities. There is always an “us” who is
marginalized and not listend to and “them” the oppressor and established authority, this idea is
best portrayed by the romantic image of David and Goliath or “Liberty leading the people” of
Eugene Delacroix, the topless woman raising the flag over the defeated enemy announcing the
victory, because we always identify with the weak, the outsider, the female figure of Delacroix,
all of us need the feeling even for one moment of having the power in our hands, when you feel
week you will always urge to feel power in your hands.
The rise of radio then of television and later of social media gave access to a lot of people to
consume media, educate, inform and make themself heard regarding the daily problems, social
problems and make the others from the comunity aware of the situation of others, the
communication made accessible for us to easily share ideas, chat or inform, similiar to the war
better transport made the world smaller also media had a role in it. We could discuss about the
same topics, same movies, see the same news and fight for the same ideals, it helped us
connect more but recently also made a retreat for us from the daily problems, for some of the
individuals even made them to exclude complety from the outside life and create and universe
inside this medias. This step was good but also came with other problems for us to resolve.
Mass media and social media gave the opportunity of the masses to make themselves heard
“Mass art is produced and delivered by mass media. These media are called mass because they
make the product avaible to relatively large audiences simultaneusly.”1 but in the same time
gave power to the journalists and idiots to influence the life of the polis “Social media gives
legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine,
without harming the community. Then they were quickly silenced, but now they have the same
right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.”2 So our interest can be
pointed at the subject of interest of others, now the opinion of everyone being worth nearly the
same. In the same time a government can also by ban or censorship to establish the points of
intereset of the public, for example US will point Russia, China as the bad guys for the public,
North Korea will suppress the media totally and only allow controled ones to run, and Turkey
having an long history of strong religious belief, even that now is secular, will try following as
close the teachings of Quran, respectively will support pro muslim manifestations and will
suppress the ones promoting progessive ideas like LGBT or female rights that do not follow the

1
The Ontology of Mass Art, Noel Caroll, p.189
2
Umberto Eco, https://medium.com/writing-in-the-media/why-social-medias-are-for-idiots-9a19c7706e19
word of Allah “The search for what is massively accesible even tends to influence the choice of
content in mass entertainments.”3
So giving the right to express to undeducated masses or having restrictive governments is can
harm a lot of people, especially the minorities or in some chases even the majority (the dispute
between shia and sunni in Syria). But the mass art part of human culture from long time ago “In
principle a work of art has always been reproductible. Man made artifact coudl always be
imitated by men. Replicas made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their
work, and, finally, by third parties in pursuit of gain.”4 People had even from old times the
interest of material gains using information and art, so in the pursuit of it we will face cliche
articles that fits an matrix but without any personal connection to the author. In the same time
using templates for movie success, the way Hollywood does, can be good and also bad, on one
way a large number of people can easily consume the media and understand the message but in
the same time created a saturation of the market without improving the scene with meaningful
and artistic pieces of art like european markets do for example.
The culture of protest gave rise to the shanties, songs, messages, symbols and heroes between
the people like Imagine by John Lennon, hippie movement, peace or anarchy symbols and the
visual artist Banksky.
In Turkey especially we could see how the govermnet allowed protests supporting the situation
of palestinians because of the common muslim background and because of the rivalry of the
muslim world with Israel that is colonizing by force palestinian lands and considering them
second hand citizens, but forbiding the female march from 8 th march in Taksim because they
were promoting an equalitarian approach towards the female problems in Turkey, because the
ideas of the protesters were fighting with the turkish interpretation of Quran teachings and the
role of females in the society, the manifestations were supressed by force and tear gas by law
keeping forces. So we could call the situation double edged, because only allowing some of the
movements to manifest can affect the public view regarding a problem and the people will not
be educated about the problems of one of the parts, if there is an crowd that manifests for a
purpose means there is a problem, and by surpressing the their voice you will make no good to
anyone, but create divisions between people and outrage the suppressed ones.

3
The Ontology of Mass Art, Noel Caroll, p.190
4
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin, p.218