another thing about North America is...

I found a copy of the Turkish magazine Skylife from April 2005. This is an industry mag for Turkish Airlines, and like many of these complementary publications, it exists largely to transmit advertising to an otherwise captive inflight audience. Lifestyle obviously plays a big part of ad culture, and Skylife is no different. Where it does differentiate itself is in its cultural content, and not for the reasons which may seem obvious.

A quick flip to the section on music reveals that the indie music scene has a larger profile in Turkey than it does in North America. First page: a profile of an electronica festival featuring Amon Tobin, Peaches, M83, and the Tied & Tickled Trio, among others. Apparently, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Art, who are principle organizers of the event, have their fingers a hell of a lot closer to the pulse than do mainstream art organizations on this side of the Atlantic. With the notable exception of the inclusion of Jaga Jazzist at last year's summer concert series at the Docks in Toronto, I have not seen an equivalent conflation of independent and mainstream audiences.

So I turn the page, and what lies in front of me but line profiles of Boom Bip, Tobias Thomas, Electrelane, Nicola Conte, Jason Moran, the Notwist, and the Kitbuilders. Now, none of these acts is on the pristine cutting edge, but to see them in a magazine which is aimed at the general public is fairly impressive -- and in an industry mag, no less.

Equally impressive is the section of film, which looks at Vera Drake from the UK and Samaritan Girl from South Korea, alongside some rep cinema favourites.

From this, can i assume that the average urban dweller of Turkey, or at least of Istanbul, has a higher level of cultural awareness than the typical suburban dweller in North America? After all, our mainline magazines seem to focus on J-Lo, 50 Cent, or Kelly Clarkson whenever they need to fill a section on music. Typical print copy centres not on their music, but rather their lifestyles and other nuggets of personal gossip, thus successfully avoiding that fact that none of these "artists" actually has anything to say.

Film over here tends to focus on how much money the files in the top 5 made. No merit is given to artistic quality or authorial intention. If the total is higher than say $15 million for an opening weekend, then it was a success. It's like all the mainstream imprints received Playschool Kids' First Aesthetics and Criticism sets when they started to write about art. Art = money, otherwise nobody has any fucking clue.

I think the public actually wants to consume legitimate culture, as evidenced by the success of some relatively cutting-edge television shows and films. The real problem as I see it is accessibility. Most people simply do not have the time (or, more insideously, the motivation) to seek out alternative forms of media content. Instead, they just let what washes over their senses by mainstream media be counted as "my culture".

So what happens to a culture which wants good music, but continually indulges market instincts for the promotion of a culture. J-Lo wins the music race because the company behind her spends millions marketing her sounds and image to the population. Lacking any real alternatives to MuchMusic/MTV or broadcast radio, people come to accept J-Lo as a normative force in music, rather than the aesthetically useless noise that it is.

But hey, who am I to judge. Go ahead, waste your time with crappy hollow songs that you think highlight your life. What does that say about you? :P