Ms Larissa Hjorth
Larissa is a writer, artist and lecturer and is currently working on a PhD in Cultural Studies (University of Melbourne) on new media and gender in Tokyo, Japan. She has published in art magazines such as "Art Asia Pacific", "Like", "Broadsheet", "Art and Australia", and has two upcoming chapters: 'Kawaii@keitai' in the forthcoming "Japanese Cybercultures" (Ed) Mark McLelland and Nanette Gottlieb, London, Routledge; and 'Ma and Pop' in the forthcoming "Mobile Cultures", (Eds) Chris Berry, Fran Martin and Audrey Yue, Durham, Duke Uni. Press.
Space Invaders: Cute Capital
The notion of the 'cute' traces a similar terrain to that of the 'popular'. On one hand, it is seemingly universal and yet it is marked by specific cultural indices and contextual factors. It is both ubiquitous and ambiguous. To say something is 'cute' is to demonstrate specific cultural taste and values systems while simultaneously playing party to hegemonic forces. To surf the terrain of cute capital is to cross the often-divisive debates and concepts surrounding popular culture and globalism. Specifically, cute characters forge a place in which corporeality and cyberspace can converge. In order to discuss cute capital (i.e. the consumer logic and technological knowledges attached to 'cuteness') this paper will give a cursory introduction of some cute characters that play between subcultural and mainstream tendencies and then discuss Roland Robertson's notion of 'glocalisation'and Manuel Castells' notion of 'customisation'. These two concepts allow practitioners and theorists to rethink the rocky landscape of popular culture and consumer practices in the light of contested definitions of globalism.
Top of page
