Whitecaps of white noise

Fitting that Canadian sound explorer Tim Hecker sculpts seven and a half minutes of almost completely undifferentiated fuzz into a track called "The Work of Art in an Age of Cultural Overproduction." Fitting because he realizes that one has to start dealing with the reality of life in a big, viscous glut of cultural junk.

Obviously the social condition of cultural obesity has something to do with the fact that the primary way that I, an individual here in the beating heart of the media empire, am able to come to terms with my own identity is to cross the coveted threshold from media consumer to media producer. To lay down some tracks, to shoot and edit a film, to write a book (my memoirs!), to be interviewed on some documentary, to put some dumb video of myself online.

But in what sense is it socially desirable to add my voice or your voice to the already deafening roar of cultural white noise? There are too many records. Too many films showing in too many theaters. Too much must-see video programming. Too many new releases, too many staff picks, too many best-sellers. Too many logos, too much smart design play, too many fonts, too many slick magazines, and way too many clever advertising concepts. Too many photos taken of ourselves and too many of our friends in interesting places and positions, too many attempts at interesting angles. Too much data accessible on too many PDAs at any time and any place. Too many people eating lunch alone, accompanied only by one of those wireless cell phone earpieces. Too many mp3s. Too many "relevant" churches posting too many sermon podcasts to be played back on too many video iPods. Too many blogs with too many posts. And too many sleek Apple laptops cranking out this blather.

Maybe in some way cultural production can still be valid, but I can't imagine any worthwhile piece of art that doesn't first respond to it's relationship to all of the other cultural, virtual, enticing, bite-size media bits trying to edge it out for a second of our attention. Which is why tediously slow washes of barely harmonic sound that demand at least an hour of listening time is about all the cultural product that I can keep down these days.

And I know that the right thing to do is to not get so easily seduced into the belief that I exist to propagate of my own "unique" perspective on the world via the free market apparatus.

But I do get so easily seduced. And I start to make things. And I start to recommend cultural product like the artists above or the video below as an antidote to an overload of cultural product. Why do I do it, the thing I don't want to do?