virtualization of design and production a thesis - Bilkent University

to grow ever stronger. But the real concern is independent from technology
because the power of technology is connected with the power of capital in the
hands of big corporations and production firms. The formalization in the
products can be observed when mechanically differentiated products prove to
resemble each other. There are differences only to maintain the fake competition
and range of choice. “The universal criterion of merit is the amount of
‘conspicuous production’, of blatant cash investment. The varying budgets in the
culture industry do not bear the slightest relation to factual values, to the meaning
of products themselves. (Adorno 124)
The term ‘industry’ within the concept of culture industry should not be
conceived literally because it has less to do with the production processes but
rather it refers to the standardization of the thing itself (Adorno 87) and even the
customers and viewers. Perhaps the most critical mode of production is the
establishment of pre-defined consumer groups since culture industry does not
only offer clearly calculated, classified and standardized products but it also
offers these products to a mass of pre-established, defined contemplative and
passive subjects –the so-called consumers. It creates music that you would easily
guess the subsequent rhythm and films that would end up with familiar screen
shots.
“There is nothing left for the consumer to classify. Producers
have done it for him. Art for the masses has destroyed the dream
but still conforms to the tenets of that dreaming idealism which
critical idealism baulked at. Everything derives from
consciousness: for Malebranche and Berkeley, from the
18