Enjoying “Casual” Art
SYLLABUS CURATED BY RESIDENT ARTIST Emmet Prieto Webster
About the Syllabus Project:
As part of our commitment to build a stronger, more cohesive Level Ground community, we’ve launched a new project to foster a shared language and raise our collective consciousness together. Twice a year, Level Ground will work with a group of artists to curate a themed media syllabus of podcasts, articles, films, books, etc. Check out our Fall 2020 Syllabus here. To get the most out of The Syllabus experience, become a Level Ground member today!
About the Artist:
This summer we are releasing a Syllabus from all three Level Ground resident artists. Each Syllabus is curated by the artist to reflect the critical, creative, and imaginative foundations of their work. Emmet Prieto Webster’s residency project, Zero Parecer uses popular telenovela Rebelde as a lens with which to explore Mexican-American teenhood. Read this interview with the artist and stay tuned for details about Emmet’s gallery show which will open in Los Angeles in July 2021.
1. Curated YouTube Playlist (Videos)
Playlist includes the following videos:Mikumentary
Episode 2: Ephemeral / hologram / weird (5:34m)
Episode 3: Participatory Culture (3:08m)
Episode 5: Goddess / Pop Star / Ideal Cute Girl (5:16m)
Avril Lavigne Discusses Her Punk Rocker (5:21m)
Frontierland / Fronterilandia (1995) (excerpt) (8:55m)
Me Singing Stay By Rihanna (4:29m)
El Huapango de la Pantera Rosa (2:51m)
Punk Covers - Pink panther (Ska Version) (1:08m)
Pink Panther Theme Song (PedroDJDaddy Trap Remix) (3:14m)
2. World Music in Television Ads by Timothy D. Taylor (Academic article, 27 pages, download here)
Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary, cover
“These days, turn on the television and the likelihood is that music that sounds like “world music” (that is, nonwestern music) will be trying to sell something, whether a flight on an airplane, a cruise, or an automobile.”
3. Ancient L.A. by Michael Jacob Rochlin (Book, get it at your local library)
Don’t have time to read the whole book? Check out the first chapter titled: “Ancient LA”
4. MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985 (Book, available for purchase here)
Don’t have time to read the whole book? Check out the chapter titled: “The Present Day Pachuco Refuses to Die”
“Every city deserves a book like this, a book that changes preconceived notions of the place in which you live and gives you information you can use to see places you could very well see every day in an entirely different light.”
5. Time and Belief in Exotica by Phil Ford (Academic article, 23 pages, download here)
Album cover art, Ritual of the Savage (Le Sacre du Sauvage) (Capitol, 1951)
6. The Gendered Carnival of Pop by Diane Railton (Academic article, 10 pages, download here)
“One of the ironies of popular music studies is that the music that is the most popular, in terms of contemporary chart success, is rarely discussed by academics writing in the field.”