This video was created in 2015/2016 as a part of an experiment and critical analysis:

"Combatting Psychological Barriers Through Art in Virtual Spaces" 

by Nia Belton, 2015

In this new age of information and technology, human interaction and engagement with the world is a very new experience. Though information and communication are widespread--flowing across time and space--I've observed that cultural, social and psychological barriers are still prevalent in corporeal spaces and also within new online spaces. Having been provided a critical lens by cultural studies to assess the present predicament, I am witnessing the workings of power in action and its effects on the human psyche. On the other hand, I am finding budding and successful efforts taken by young people to confront issues concerning imposed limitations via art. I believe art to be a powerful and effective tool in engaging and overcoming cultural hegemony (both inside and out of virtual spaces), and this paper explores how I've found evidence to support this claim. 

With this project, I sought to find out how the youth interpret art as a productive means to advance through certain obstacles. These obstacles can be understood as psychological barriers: the limitations people feel are placed upon them through ideological constructs. My findings are that today's 'borders' in a digital world are not so much physical obstacles, but barriers that permeate the virtual world and have the possibility to restrict and shape one's thoughts about themselves and the world. 

Much thought has gone into questioning whether or not the internet can democratize society or not. In Evgeny Morozov's book "The Net Delusion: the Dark Side of Internet Freedom," he uses the term cyber utopianism to describe the unique belief in the emancipatory nature of online communication and the dangerous belief that it favors the oppressed rather than the oppressor. He speaks of todays "resurgent authoritarianism," of which the seemingly democratic prospects of this neo-globalized world are no match. I understood this authoritarianism to be responsible for breeding the psychological barriers we face today. Morozov thinks that this coercion becomes unsustainable once the barriers to the free flow of information are removed. However, I am seeing evidence of how it is becoming dismantled as people confront it from within the virtually blockaded space itself. 

My research on these 'psychological barriers' lies in the work of thinkers like Foucault and Gramsci. They both explore how power operates and how superstructures maintain dominance over subjected groups. In his essay "Docile Bodies," Foucault explains how discipline produces subjected bodies: Power acts on and through people producing themselves as 'docile bodies'. Institutionalized power breeds specific persona categories/types that we attempt to embody. We only know what it means to act like or be any 'type' based on images we’ve seen or information we've been fed; If we created our own criteria of what being a specific type entails (and it went against the common prototype) it would not be accepted as true and would be met with opposition. For example, in America during a certain time, it was a common rule that females wore dresses. If a young woman wore overalls in public, she might be considered unladylike. Even though she was still very much a woman, socially it would be agreed upon that she was not embodying a true woman. This elucidates how power works: it doesn't allow you to define your truth and exercise it as such--it gives you the 'truth' to which you must abide in order to be accepted. Gramsci, in his writings entitled "The Prison Notebooks" explains that when ideology expands to take on moral and intellectual leadership (combined with domination), it becomes cultural hegemony. It is important to identify and critically examine the beliefs we hold that seem to be natural, common and true because many of these ideas were fed to us and are the products of dominant relations. 

I was curious to test the political agency that my peers believe to have within the digital realm specifically. In Jodi Dean's work "Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics," she questions the impact of networked communications technologies (like Twitter, for example) and asserts that as communicative capitalism, they are profoundly depoliticizing. "In an age celebrated for communication, there is no response," () she states. Messages published on the web are more likely to get lost as mere contributions to the circulation of content. What enhances democracy in one context becomes a new form of hegemony in the other. Therefore, "the intense circulation of content in communicative capitalism forecloses the antagonism necessary for politics," (). I can understand how this may seem to be true. Today, political content is constantly being distributed and reworked as people repost, comment on and like it. This seemingly depreciates the value of messages circulated online as even people with no interest in a topic can add their useless perspective and deem it important. Where is the line drawn between useful information and simply reproduced opinion? And is there a way to work around this, constructively contributing to social change online?

With this background knowledge, I was curious to find if my contemporaries personally felt subjected to these same workings of power, and if so, how they dealt with it. Attending a forward thinking university that provides a strong creative outlet, I wondered if my fellow students felt restricted at all. I set out to interview young women (fellow students), since this project is questioning the agency of marginalized groups in society--a group to which I myself belong. In some sense I do observe the restrictions and limitations of this neo-globalized world. These psychological barriers impose on every facet of living: What is the right thing to eat? How does one achieve success? What does it mean to live a 'good' life? The answers are fed to us constantly, and in this digital age the messages are more insidiously and rapidly instructing us. 

Through border studies I have found that people have effectively challenged physical borders by means of artistic and creative expression; could this apply in the digital world as well? In Madsen's essay "Graffiti, Art and Advertising: Re-Scaling Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation State" it is explored how graffiti/art develop as unconventional means of claiming space and are utilized to contest prevalent political winds and reclaim local and alternative senses of who belongs and what is deemed important. "Graffiti and art on borders provides a means for both groups to think through and resist an exclusive national understanding of power," Madsen informs (98). People find agency and a voice when altering imposed spaces as "barriers themselves have inadvertently provided a forum for public display of alternative viewpoints," (97). The concept of 'rescaling border space' shows how those marginalized by national politics and the neoliberal global economy can recapture a sense of belonging through art and communication. "Art [is recognized here] as a force for social change," (99). 

At the same time, I noticed specific instances of people confronting physical and psychological barriers both in real life and online through art. Haleigh Nickerson exercises her agency through her art. On Instagram Haleigh shared her political artwork displayed outside of Planned Parenthood. She created her own rendition of J. Howard Miller's "We Can Do It!" wartime propaganda posters, replacing herself as the subject. I found out about this project through an online 'virtual' space--yet it impacted me in a completely tangible way. About a week later, it was reported that this organization had lost funding. We got together to discuss these issues and their importance to us. Not only people who walked past Planned Parenthood at that time, but anyone globally who had access to Instagram, could be affected by her work. If her work did nothing else, it brought awareness to a social issue--which is the first step toward effective change. This is one example of the communicative and confrontational power of art across platforms real or imagined.  

One may question how powerful these minor social exchanges may be. In Goldfarb's "Politics of Small Things," he explores how people make history in their social interactions. He tries to account for the emergence of small things as an ascendent political force when he states that, “a whole range of power is not perceived," here (4). When people freely meet and talk as equals, displaying distinctions, they develop a capacity to act together and they create power. Goldfarb asserts further that "the appearance of professional standards and professional interactions according to those standards, defines a significant social reality. Such struggle over social definition is a key component of the politics of small things," (7). In Haleigh's case, she directly challenged society's idea of a strong woman by imposing her self-image (which happens to be marginalized) onto a controversial and sociopolitical space. Her expression allowed for others to meet together in opposition and discuss alternatives to cultural hegemony.

For the video portion of my experiment I had each interviewee read the opening two paragraphs of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. This book is about a young black woman in the American south finding her voice and learning how to stay true to herself in a harsh world. I thought this was completely relevant to the topic, so I prompted my peers to give me their interpretation of the excerpt. I followed up with five questions: As a female, what is your most potent quality? Do you believe we live in a world that needs saving? What is your dream? What's one thing males can do to allow the female power to flourish? Why art (as a means of communication/politicization/expression) ? The responses I received were interesting. There were common threads amongst the answers I got. Most of these women felt that their mind/perspective was the most powerful attribute about themselves and agreed that the present age is one that definitely holds some measurable restriction for everyone. They all feel they have agency when it comes to effecting change, and that art is a powerful means of exercising it. Their perspective of what art actually is: Art is not just painting--it can be found in conversation between people, in nuanced movement, or even the way in which something is presented online. I got the notion that they believed almost anything inspiring could be understood as art. It was refreshing to hear a response that gender binaries are irrelevant: When I asked Lizzie what her most potent quality as a female was, she replied that she doesn't like to view characteristics as gender exclusive. She expanded on this statement saying that we all share both masculine and feminine qualities within us. This is proof that my peers are critically engaging with ideological constructs and consciously working to deconstruct/confront them. These responses were unexpected and unrehearsed.  

With this project, I wanted to challenge the notion that art is not powerful enough to create physical change and combat cultural hegemony especially through online spaces. By interviewing my peers I realized that we do understand the workings of structural power, yet we have confidence in changing it. In this digital age, much criticism is put on young people and their ability to act and communicate both inside and out of virtual spaces. I hope that this project attests to the falsity of that claim. In a virtual world, it seems that us young people are confident in combatting psychological barriers, especially through creative expression. As Goldfarb states: "In the end it was the idealists who dared to speak truth to power, to constitute the power of the powerless, who were the realists [...]," (145). 

Works Cited

1. Morozov, Evgeny. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2011. Print. 

2. Foucault, Michel, and Paul Rabinow. The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon, 1984. Print.

3. Gramsci, Antonio, Joseph A. Buttigieg, and Antonio Callari. Prison Notebooks. Print.

4. Dean, Jodi. "Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics." Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics. Duke University Press, 2005. Web. 21 Dec. 2015.

5. Madsen, Kenneth D. "Graffiti, Art, and Advertising: Re-Scaling Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation State." Geopolitics. London: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2015. 95-117. Print.

6. Goldfarb, Jeffrey C. "The Politics of Small Things." (2006): Web.