Concrete Playground

In the fine traditions of extracurricular activities and Madonna (no, we are not linking that for you), Serial Space has assembled a crack team of smart people from the local arts and music community to decide once and for all "Is Lady Gaga an empowered female pop icon or an emaciated trash-mole?" Initially perceived as being merely the one who doesn't wear pants ever (as opposed to the ones who just often don't), Gaga became FASHION and found her way onto the cultural radar of those who like to intellectualise their consumption of pop culture as well as those who like to shout about people on the internet.

She's met the Queen, talks publicly and non-judgmentally about being celibate as a personal-political stance and carried a teacup everywhere for a while. She also released some songs. Don't pretend you don't like Bad Romance at least just a little bit; her music career hits that Justin Timberlakey point of being kinda disposable but distinguished by an ironically cheesy sexed-upness strong enough to make some of us realise that taking things seriously isn't a precondition for liking them.

She has gimmicks, sure, but are they all there is? Are they enough her own that they become legit? Is she breaking the mould of pop music by being an image auteur, or is she a faux-iconoclastic pastiche of attention-whoring dressed up as Performance Art? Let's settle this once and for all.