These discussions are about the meaning of large ideas by exploring them from their origins in etymology, philosophy, and history and how that has created the modern context of connotations and ideologies we associate with these large ideas. While I will not be able to encompass the entirety of these subjects within one discussion, I still hope to explore the breadth and depth of these discussions as far as possible, and over time. The ultimate point of these discussions is to open the realm of ideas through deeper understanding rather than floating on the surface of unspoken social consensus. What is not the point of these discussions is to be right or decide upon an objective truth. If you find yourself disagreeing with me that’s okay. If I say things that contradict your understanding please feel free to respectfully discuss these things in the comments, the Discord channel, or DMs of any social community in which we are friends.
The only skill that matters is influence
In our last discussion on Art we focused on the way art evolved from a place of creativity that was a necessity to life into creativity as superfluous self-expression for pure aesthetics and commerce. The focus on commercial success and vapid aesthetics has left no room for spiritual exploration, and has forced artists to think like business owners. We’re now focused on what works on the platforms, and what sells, over what we enjoy creating. We cut the costs of equipment, collaborators, and quality to create what we can afford and in many cases we have chosen to reduce our art to the attention span and taste of our audience. Art of low quality is fueled by technology, and exacerbated in hundreds of ways by our fast paced lifestyles, commodification of time, and attention to the point that no one has more than 11 seconds to have an addictive reaction or they’ll scroll to the next song, video, article, or image.
In this environment what is an artist actually looking for when they search the creative depths for inspiration? Do we spend more time searching for truth and meaning or do we search for the thing that makes us popular, marketable, and valuable in the eyes of an audience?
In the original definition of art there’s a focus on skill that we have lost in the modern context. Music has become a collection of loops that are pre-recorded into DAWs. Musicians have been largely replaced with tech knowledgeable producers who can rearrange samples. Even these producers are not given the credit as it takes a pop singer and ghost writer lyricist to repeat themes of love, heartbreak, party themes, or the appropriate level of anger over these arranged samples. And we call these personalities “artists” while the creators of the samples, the synth sounds, and software are virtually unknown to the world as mere employees. Everyone is just doing their job. Given the payments provided by streaming services this is probably the best business model anyone can have for music. Having a band, orchestra, or even more than one person getting money from a song is unsustainable. Using microphones as little as possible also makes sense. Sampled and synthesized instruments require much less tweaking to mix, no mic hiss, or amps to deal with. Everything has already been made to hit play and sound near perfect, slap on some presets and get going. If you can’t play an instrument that’s okay we’ll just draw it in MIDI. You don’t understand music theory? That’s okay we have auto tune and can lock into scales and modes. We can even quantize the rhythm when you can’t keep a beat.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a gear nerd. I love tools and I utilize technology for creativity. I appreciate the democratizing force that a cheap barrier to entry provides for people that can’t afford instruments and equipment. The problem I see is that the technology has been coupled with the mindset of quick vapid fame, diva behavior, and a focus on cash as the ultimate goal of creative endeavors which means rather than becoming highly skilled with a new medium we create the same types of songs over and over. No one is using the tech to increase their skills, just decreasing the effort that goes into creating near carbon copies of formulas that prove market viability.
These are similar to complaints a traditional painter might make about digital art. There is focus on aesthetics but the skill of being able to draw, understand color theory, shading, or any other practical knowledge are lost by preset pallets, auto shading tools, premade 3D renders, etc. I understand that the skills lost to time and technological advance may be unnecessary but what is the nature of these mediums that create its natural style? Style is the natural byproduct of medium. What is the nature of the digital medium? How can we break through the binary into a place where the spirit is heightened by these tools and the skills we acquired in our analog mediums transcends into the digital realm not as competitors but in synchronicity?
Our current artistic culture is alive on pure memetics. We copy the styles of past decades, remake the same movies, revise the same hero stories, and sing the same love songs. Our social media is kept alive by borrowing pop culture references and reframing them to whatever social, poltical, or personal message is popular at the time. Some of the most popular social media pages steal and repurpose the long form material of other podcasts and documentaries.
Market forces and pop culture certainly made it this way, but art culture has slowly been steered this direction by exploring meaning and lack thereof in 19 and 20th century art and philosophy. Absurdism, Nihilism, Dadaism, Postmodernism, and Existentialism are just some examples of artistic explorations that sought to find a meaning in a fastly evolving society that was just as quickly losing its grip on spirituality. The stories and mission of art prior to the 19th century largely sought to convey reality; capturing the truth of life and giving it a spiritual lens through which to experience something unfamiliar. As technology gave us more accurate representations of reality via photographs, film, and objective science sought to explain the wonder of life as measurable phenomena, the subjective experience of art had no place in an objective reality. This left the artist to explore the depths of spirituality and human experience in more abstract ways. But those artistic experiments failed to reach the masses in any meaningful way except Pop Art.
Market data began to document what music, imagery, and stories caused responses that resonated with the biggest audiences. This data allows for producers, advertisers, record companies, investors, and government agencies to manipulate media in such a way to steer people towards products, and propaganda. The ability to control behavior and narrative via emotional manipulation has replaced any spiritual endeavors in art, and by making artists compete within a system in which new and unexplored themes are unacceptable we’re eventually ground down into products or left to be hobbysists.
Artists start to become clones of successful business models rather than diving into the creative depths for something new and unexplored from fear that you can’t get mass attention with niche ideas. In this endeavor we have given all of our art up to social media and signed away our rights in hopes that someone would pay attention long enough to make us rich, famous, or both. Now the entirety of artistic endeavors are called content and given to the algorithm to decide if your art is worthy of human attention. We have willingly reduced our entire lives to data and wonder why the big tech companies treat our art like their property. It’s interesting to see how quickly people change their minds on fair use, homage, and originality when artificial intelligence enters the chat. We have been stealing from each other since the beginning of time, and the lines became exponentially blurred when the internet and social media became an active part of artistic lifestyle. The entirety of the digital media explosion has been wage theft, and labor arbitrage to the creative industry. All of these digital platforms have been stealing from artists, and consumers use these technologies to steal from artists, and it has gone on for well over a decade. AI is doing what any great artist does, but better.
Thanks for reading! If you would like to see the video version check the links below. In the video I offer a bit of impromptu elaboration on certain points and may be working from an older or newer draft than the one published above. Thanks for the support and keep diving deep inside yourself to ask the hard questions that push our humanity to the next level.
Lens Protocol via Tape:
https://tape.xyz/watch/0x019965-0x6f
YouTube:
