Watch ArtShock online: Episode 1 Is Bad art for Bad People

Jake Chapman's documentary starts with the Mutt urinal (where else? How about Olympia?), then Marcus Harvey's Myra Hindley, and moves onwards to "impoverished representations of human bodies and actions" and "joyful destruction". Is shocking bad? Brock Enright: video/performance artist who offers kidnap experiences (think of it like an S&M version of CRS in The Game. BBC: "Enright admits to concerns that the service is beginning [to] get out of hand and is becoming too violent. 'Right now I am worrying. I'm thinking about it a lot.'" Times journo: "I found myself oddly reluctant to talk about what had happened".) Is beautiful better than poor taste? Is the appetite for aesthetic imagery merely a longing to be reassured that the positive, beautiful things in the world are permanent? Goya. More YBAs, but not this image of Hirst and head. Then, from shock to banality (Jeff Koons, enigmatic), nihilism, pointlessness, laughter ("originality has no value whatsoever"; copying and damaging is pointless too: the damage to an object or image is "always recuperated immediately" - Chapman Bros). This obsessive-indifferent appetite for intensity/pointlessness was an in-crowd symptom at art school. The doc asks us to think about our preferences, but is more an immersion in (rather than an argument on) the value of shocking/bad/nihilistic/banal art images. Entertaining, and that the adverts during the broadcast seemed to be more ironic and to need more consideration, suggests it succeeded somewhat. The Hills Have Eyes film Levis moonbathing Nivea for men More Than car insurance Nokia slide handsets The Brothers Grimm dvd Pepsi Max Cino D and A opticians (cartoon men being squeezed into sausage cases, a metaphor for impersonal customer service; resonated with the next night's documentary) The Pink Panther film Guinness Lloyds home insurance Think! wear a car seatbelt Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire dvd Saab Airwaves chewing gum Hostel film Ghost Recon game 28 Days Later tv Lynx clicker Benefit cheats Listerine anti-plaque No Angels tv

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