Speech Outline:
- Introduction of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Room art installations.
- Attention: think back to when you were in elementary school. You probably had to take part in some sort of concert, play, or pageant at some point. How many parents were there, watching? And how many were rushing around taking pictures or videos? I remember always begging my parents to record the plays I was in, and they always refused, saying they couldn’t enjoy it from behind the camera.
- Topic: Close your eyes and stare out into the darkness behind your eyelids. Take a journey through the infinite space of abstract colors and shapes. Dissolve into it. How would you capture this experience? How would you convey it to others? And why would you want to convey it at all? Kusama’s Infinity Room art installations were originally made to convey a sense of the infinite, and the meaninglessness of the self. They’re now modern art’s top selfie booth.
- HOOK: What do we all do when we see something beautiful? We take a picture of it home with us. We show it to our friends. All of us have done it. Has the value of sharing an experience eclipsed the value of the experience itself?
- Establishing Credibility: I saw two of these rooms in the Mattress Factory art museum in Pittsburgh. I took pictures in both of them. So did everyone else in the rooms with me. I’ve been guilty of taking pictures of things instead of appreciating them.
- Thesis: A cultural wave of individualism, driven by the anxiety and loneliness of youth, and captured in the new world of social media, is compromising our ability to appreciate the original message of art like Kusama’s, which embraces the meaningless, monotonous, infinite nature of the universe and the insignificance of the individual.
- Preview: Today I will discuss the themes the art was originally meant to convey, the new niche it has taken up in the age of social media, and why an appreciation of the art’s original values is essential to the healing of an anxious modern world.
In order to discover the ways our individualism undermines Kusama’s work, we must first consider her artistic vision, beginning with the first Infinity Room in 1965.
The original function of the art installations.
subpoint 1 – The installations convey Kusama’s philosophy of Self-Obliteration- the individual blending in and disappearing into an abstract, meaningless, beautiful, endless universe, the individual self broken into shards thrown across every wall.
subpoint 2 – There is an essential comfort in forgetting the individual self. One cannot find empathy or appreciate beauty without leaving oneself. Most mental torments would be abandoned if the consciousness ceased to be able to consider itself as an entity, and instead looked towards the universe as a whole.
subpoint 3 – We need to realize the meaningless infinity of the universe in order to find meaning in our daily lives. The anxieties that seem so important disappear when one sees the infinite scale of things. This liberates the mind to choose what matters, and to focus with a renewed sense of calm and community.
With the advent of the personal cell phone camera and the burgeoning movement of cyber-individualism, the way the installations serve us today is drastically different from their original purpose.
The modern function of the art installations.
subpoint 1 – The art installations are now a trendy source of social currency. Posting pictures and telling stories from the rooms makes one seem cultured and educated. The physical beauty of the space decorates people’s virtual existence.
subpoint 2 – Hyper-individualism has created the modern space of social media, where people struggle to keep up a sparkling permanent record that boasts all the best parts of themselves. It is seen as a missed opportunity if one does not use this space to create an idealized self, displaying all of its brilliance, uniqueness, beauty, and culture. All the best must be on display for it to be worthwhile.
subpoint 3 – The art is serving the opposite of its original purpose. Instead of getting lost in infinity, viewers harness it for their desperate personal quest to share every scrap of joy and meaning. One must not only deal with a physical self, and how it is perceived, but also a second, idealized, customizable self.
The way we interact with Kusama’s art today is a sign of the unhealthy side of flourishing individualism. Our selfies hold clues as to how we might escape our modern insecurities about the design of the perfect self.
The anxiety that has changed the way we view these art installations would be assuaged by viewing them the way we once did.
subpoint 1 – Modern cyber-individualism creates the illusion of freedom surrounding one’s identity. It sends everyone into a tailspin, trying to control the narrative about themselves and make it favorable. This obviously causes stress, but it also is borne out of a cultural anxiety and loneliness. Our inability to embrace the idea of not always being an individual shows a fear of being unworthy without one’s individual achievements. In addition, the development of social media, for the first time ever, allows everyone to curate a perfect, interesting, beautiful self for all to see. This hasn’t ever happened in human history before. The self has never been as permanent as it is now. That’s an existential question all on its own, but the importance of this curated self makes the development of a perfect internet self on display more important than the curation of genuine experiences that impact the individual soul that no one else can see.
subpoint 2 – The existential fear of a generation, refined by helicopter parenting and a new age of hyper-security, sits with one question: am I good enough? The fact that everyone strives to refine a favorable individual narrative implies the collective fear that the answer is “No.” Everyone is trying to prove themselves through their identity, and is seemingly unable to accept their worth and value in the universe if that worth isn’t tied to their individualism.
subpoint 3 – People are lonely and afraid. Continuing the control-freak mission of creating a perfect self doesn’t make it any better. People resist letting go of the self and getting lost in the meaningless universe, but this is exactly what they need to learn to do. We must trust the world enough to get lost in it if we wish to see its beauty. We must accept that we have not squeezed all of the social value out of every opportunity, if we want to find value within our own existence.
We must question whether we come to art to absorb the artist’s intent or to feed our individual selves with its parts as we see fit. If we are to experience the art the way the artist meant us to, we must return to her philosophy.
- Kusama’s philosophy, and her method of physical immersion in it through art, are needed now more than ever, when collective insecurity drives the cultural narrative. A generation of anxious young people must return to the original purpose of the art that decorates their perfect, cultured social media pages.
- In summary…
- The purpose of the artwork is not getting photographic proof of having experienced it. The purpose of the artwork is to experience its message through its strong aesthetic language, and to glimpse the interconnected nature of the universe which the artist believes should be our ultimate comfort in existence.
- Kusama’s art, and the comfort of her infinity, is everything we need. The anxiety of creating an ideal self, which is one perfect person in every environment, must be cast aside and destroyed just as one’s reflection is smashed into infinite pieces in the mirrors of the rooms.
Essay Draft:
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms immerse the viewer in a world of strange shapes and colors that stretches out in all directions. The goal of her art is to smash the individual self into fractals and leave one gazing out into a nonsensical, infinite sea of space. Now, however, her work is known as the best selfie background on Earth. It has gone from representing getting lost to the very opposite: individual attention cultivated through social media. Hyper-individualism is thriving in modern young people’s culture of loneliness and anxiety, where people are desperate to feel unique and by posting the same art selfies and buying the same products. Every company is taking advantage of this cultural shift by releasing an ad campaigns about how individual and unique their consumers are. Few are more famous than Share a Coke, a campaign that encourages people to buy Coca-Cola bottles with their names on them. Even though the bottles are obviously not individualized in any meaningful way, the modern trend of fear-driven individualism makes this campaign work. This cultural moment of anxiety is feeding advertising and changing the meaning of art. When Sharing a Coke – or a piece of art – becomes more important than the experience of enjoying the product itself, advertising thrives and art suffers. The commonplace of individualism is growing unchecked in a new social media environment, and Coca-Cola took advantage of this by seizing the moment of cultural change, captivating the right young audience, and using emotional appeals to promote the sharing of their product.
Soft drinks, especially Coca-Cola, have completely integrated themselves into the fabric of American life. I’ve been to restaurants that serve Coca-Cola to every table by default as one might serve water. Across demographics, people love soft drinks. The Share-a-Coke campaign was one of the first major advertising campaigns to completely capitalize on the potential of social media as free promotion. Whether or not people bought Cokes with their names on them, they posted pictures or sent them to friends, increasing awareness of the brand and campaign. This was the first major advertising success of its kind, completely captivating audiences. As of this writing, over 662,000 Instagram posts are tagged #shareacoke, with hundreds of thousands more across related hashtags and other social media platforms. In a time when health-conscious movements of young people were starting to threaten Coke’s stance in American society, this campaign rejuvenated the image of the beverage, taking it from default sugar water in a restaurant to something new, fresh, and exciting to share with friends. Meanwhile, individualism, a traditional value in the Western world, has been given a digital facelift. The power to curate a perfect social media persona has completely changed the way people communicate, express themselves, and, most of all, choose what is important to them. In an age when both corporations and individuals can be called brands, the mental question of whether something can fuel one’s social media image often comes before all other priorities. The development of a persona that is charming, cultured, in-the-know, and unique can bring all sorts of social and practical benefits to the modern social media user, from finding professional connections to feeling closer to friends to making money from one’s image by promoting products. To fall behind everyone else’s social media curations, on the other hand, is to announce that one’s life (and, indeed, personality) is boring and out-of-touch. As this cultural realization was first developing, with a camera in everyone’s pocket ready to capture life’s most interesting moments, Coca-Cola seized the opportunity to turn this cyber-individualism into sales, promotion, and a “rebranding” of its product.
The Share a Coke campaign targeted a young audience of social-media-savvy consumers who respond well to appeals to individualism. Coca-Cola found millenials’ need for social connection in an increasingly digital age, and fulfilled this need by creating a product that started conversations and provided shareable content. As millennials struggled to cultivate interesting online personas, collecting social currency with photographs of interesting experiences, buying a Coke during the prime of this campaign was, for the consumer, an inexpensive way to connect with friends and publicly engage with something exciting and new. This need for postable and interesting experiences is born from social media’s cyber brand of hyper-individualism: everyone in Coca-Cola’s social young audience is in a race to stand out and find a validating sense of unique importance. Though most might assume the “Share” in Share a Coke means the traditional sharing of a physical drink, Coca-Cola reaped far more benefits from the digital sharing of drinks with friends’ names, even when the drinks were not actually bought. Though taking part in a trend like the Coke bottle pictures, paradoxically, invites everyone to do the same thing, it makes each individual feel that they have added another interesting tidbit to their social media identity. This desperation for a unique, perfect online persona flourishes in traditionally individualistic cultures that teach children the value of being different. While praising uniqueness, the culture of young people in the United States is increasingly characterized by loneliness and fear. Whether or not today’s young people are lonelier than those of previous generations (and there are some indications that they are), the commonplace of youth has long been characterized as a struggle to find one’s place in the world. Psychologist Erik Erikson’s famous psychosocial stages famously describe age 13-21 as a time of “Identity vs. Role Confusion”. This longing for a place in the world manifests as loneliness, which latches onto the illusion of control provided by a perfect, unique social media persona. Coca-Cola tapped into this anxiety by creating a campaign that made young people feel unique when buying and sharing Coke products in person and online.
Both art and advertising are driven primarily by emotional appeals. This is especially true today, as the advertising world has ricocheted away from full-page text advertisements towards video and image advertisements with low word count and high artistic appeal. Everything from colors to cinematography in a modern advertisement takes priority over an informational message, because the way we consume advertising – usually because someone has placed it in front of us, not out of an innate desire to view advertising for information or entertainment – requires a quick way to retain interest. This need for a way to hook the viewer has thrived in the age of hyper-individualism. Just as salespeople were always instructed to use the customer’s name, every mass-produced email listing addresses the receiver directly, and advertisements on the internet are increasingly tailored to the viewer’s interests and search habits. This sort of tailored message makes customers feel significant, important, and unique. Our need for this validation has skyrocketed, and advertising has found myriad new ways to fulfill it. This is the primary emotional appeal behind the Share a Coke campaign. People are thrilled to see not only their own names, but also the names of their friends, on billboards and in vending machines. The customer is struck by the feeling that tailored advertising is designed to convey- a feeling that fortune has smiled down upon them and matched them with the perfect product. This turns what might have been a plain bottle of Coke into a sale, and, often, that sale turns into free advertising through social media, as consumers share the experience that has made them feel special.
The Share a Coke campaign was a smashing success for Coca-Cola because the advertising team behind it understood the cultural pivot represented by the rise of social media. They took a risk by embracing a new form of advertising, which paid off in years of free promotion from consumers, a new trendy face of Coke in the minds of the public, and, of course, sales. The internet individualism that drove the campaign, however, hints at a troubling reality. At no other time in human history did people have perfect, editable highlight reels of their best moments available to anyone at any time. As individuals use the internet to communicate more and more, and other methods less, the importance of this curated self only grows. This is the first time it has been possible to maintain such complete control of one’s image, and it has created a new desperation to be unique and on-trend, especially among young people. When curating one’s best self becomes a full-time obsession with capitalizing on any shareable content, advertisers will get away with far more than just getting us to Share a Coke. When enjoying art falls to the wayside and sharing it becomes the priority, all of humanity’s way of viewing the world has changed. The more we culturally value what others think over one’s own enjoyment, the more everyone’s lives, both real and digital, will be turned over to the personal gain of corporations.