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Underground > Creation >

On creating and the 21st century

  
 
Blue Eyes Not Innocent
14:18 / 25.05.08
Apologies if this comes off sounding pretentious, it's definitely not my intent; it's just how it keeps coming out when I write it, and I'd prefer to just start the discussion and see where it leads.

There seems to have been movement in the past couple of years towards sidestepping or eliminating big companies from the equation when it comes to distributing art; Trent Reznor, Saul Williams, and Radiohead have all self-released albums; webcomics are probably getting more readers every month than Marvel and DC combined, and the existence of Youtube allows anybody to become a filmmaker.

To me, this obviously requires more of an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, and a balance between being more aggressive in getting people to check out your content and not alienating people by being an annoying, spamming git about it. Interestingly, prose writing doesn't seem to be going this way; the old stigma of self-publishing is alive and well, and not without cause, as several of the most prominent self-publishers are the most infamous. What do you think of all this? Are we moving away from the old way, and do you think independent releases, advertising, and micropatronage can sustain art?
 
 
Baroness von Lenska
21:03 / 25.05.08
Wouldn't it be just as apt to say that creation is escaping the temporary control of large corporations? Folk music is a fine example of "popular music" that almost by definition evades the tight grasp of corporate control. There are endless variations of folk songs; it's part of the culture to assimilate something and make it "yours." Turntablism is built on a foundation of filching things from various sources and patching them together in an interesting way, making musical collages.

Really, I think the idea of going to a big record company or a publisher and contracting your work is the truly unnatural way of doing things, tied in with the (often tenuous) hope of "making it big" and "being heard" by a mass audience. The impulse to create is what drives most artists, and now that relatively cheap channels for putting your work up for mass viewing/hearing/etc. exist, many artists will choose to do that.

Something I think worth picking at is your mentioning that this flood of user-created media on the internet means tighter competition and fiercer marketing. That's certainly true for unknown artists trying to "make it big," but most of the well known artists moving away from labels were already quite well known. Radiohead, Reznor and Williams already had an established audience. Others going this route, or considering this route, approach it with less desire to appeal to a mass audience or found a massive business empire, etc. Net labels and artists like Electric President (why two guys recording jangly, crunchy electronically infused pop in their back yard shed has no mass appeal I'll never understand) seem far less business-oriented than the acts mentioned above. For some folks, just being heard so easily is enough, and if you sell some records and t-shirts along the way, well great!

I'm definitely interested in where this sort of movement will take the music industry, but I don't think it'll completely wreck that show or cut it down too much. Too many people will still want to go the route of the major artist, with all the high production standards, flashy poster designs, ridiculously bloated merchandise campaigns that implies. And that's fine. I think independent and corporate music work best when they compliment each other, as with the major acts who've distanced themselves from labels. I am not sure NIN or Radiohead would be quite as polished as they are now if they had simply thrown up mp3s onto a Myspace somewhere.

Williams, of course, would still be one of the greatest living poets regardless.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
15:12 / 28.05.08
Here's a question: is a hypothetical state, where there's no control over the peices being created, always better than one where there is the kind of control exerted by a market or the record industry or the books industry as they were at the height of their powers, just before Napster and all that followed it?

No-one's suggested this, obviously, but I think it's worth pointing out that quality control is incredibly important, even more so now that I could feasibly release a novel to the world at the click of a button (by posting it to a BB board, for example, and ditto with films and Youtube).

I'm not saying that the market ought to have the authority, but I think it needs to rest somewhere. Should a plateau be reached where everyone's a critic and everyone's an artist, surely we would swiftly arrive at a state where there were no standards by which to judge anything, and no way of making anything better (or even of making anything serious and lasting).
 
 
Saturn's nod
16:03 / 28.05.08
Should a plateau be reached where everyone's a critic and everyone's an artist, surely we would swiftly arrive at a state where there were no standards by which to judge anything, and no way of making anything better (or even of making anything serious and lasting).

You really think so? Yet some vids on YouTube have millions of views, and others only a handful. Some art experiences appeal to many and inspire those people to put forth effort to share the experience with their friends and aquaintances - I don't see where professional promotion has to come in that. Art can be experienced as attractive, compelling, or disturbing without professional critique or promotion. I think language for discussing artwork can be maintained without professional critics, as easily as people have space and enthusiasm to discuss art and a willingness to co-educate with each other.
 
 
Eek! A Freek!
16:28 / 28.05.08
To me, this obviously requires more of an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff

In the world of comics, there was a time that the Big companies were churning out only chaff and you were accepting of that because in many cases you didn't have options. Unless you looked, that is... There were almost always the Crumb's and Sim's, etc...

Music had suffered as well: If you allow the big companies to do your separating for you, you were left with the most insipid, safe, commercial pap in many cases. The big companies long stopped caring about "content" and "artist promotion" and worried more about the bottom line (Same in comics.)

The big companies let themselves be swayed by other big companies such as Walmart, or by advertising concerns who demanded a say in the content that was produced. Talented artists were being pushed aside for more generic and commercial artists.

Believe me, I'm no capitalist, but I have to agree with the likes of mFf and say that when it comes to art, a free market approach may be the best, and the art consumer can choose for themselves... Without a handful of companies making all the money, the cream should surely rise...
 
 
All Acting Regiment
16:35 / 28.05.08
I think language for discussing artwork can be maintained without professional critics, as easily as people have space and enthusiasm to discuss art and a willingness to co-educate with each other.

What about other things to compare that art too? That seems to be the missing point in your list, and indeed something akin to 'serious knowledge of things that already exist' is probably the only qualification a critic ever needs (and also a very hard one to get).
 
 
All Acting Regiment
16:39 / 28.05.08
I don't see where professional promotion has to come in that.

Well, 'professional promotion of art for purposes other than the bettering of that art' can probably be done away with - on the other hand there's a point at which to really understand something, understanding it probably has to be your primary or secondary occupation.
 
 
Saturn's nod
17:13 / 28.05.08
... something akin to 'serious knowledge of things that already exist' is probably the only qualification a critic ever needs (and also a very hard one to get).

Hmm, I've not thought of it like that. I suppose I think it much more important to have a language to discuss experiences in, some knowledge of the kinds of distinctions that might be made? I think we all have a huge library of experiences that move us for one reason or another. I think it's possible to work backwards in a conversation to find other experiences of art that share or illustrate features of the artwork that's being discussed - I don't see a need for a canon to exist before that - a shared library of things that already exist can be constructed from the conversation that's happening, can't it?
 
 
Haloquin
11:00 / 29.05.08
While I do dislike the Capitalist style way of producing/disseminating art, it does allow, as has been mentioned, the possibility for acts to become far more polished than they might otherwise. The big companies can have a lot more money than the individual artists, allowing for better materials/tools and better quality recording/printing, and so on. An alternative to this, I guess, would be artistic co-ops, but then the need for them to make the money back to live may begin to influence what they create - to appeal, to meet the bottom line - and so it spirals back into the market having a large say.

With it being so easy to get stuff out, however, it does encourage (require?) the audience to participate in the process of choosing what is good, which I think can only be better than a company choosing for them. And if people still enjoy the Big Companies' productions then they'll stick around like the independent stuff.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
16:16 / 29.05.08
a shared library of things that already exist can be constructed from the conversation that's happening, can't it?

It certainly can, but then I've only seen, for example, a few hundred films, and certainly never studied any. I'm not specially aware of the landmarks of cinema, much as I enjoy films, and I don't know how they work at a technical level. Most people who don't have a professional or serious amateur connection to film are probably the same. We can construct a shared library, sure, but it might not be a very well-stocked one.

Now supposing that these several non-professionals and I go to watch a film. We each have a response to it, and all our responses are valid to an extent, but, in deciding whether or not it's 'a good film', we hit a rock. If it's a war film and I've never seen Apocalypse Now, my judgement as to whether it's better or worse than the accepted classics of the genre is going to be hampered by this lack of knowledge (plus my subjectivity).

Now clearly someone like Roger Ebert is going to have his subjecitvity too, but he also makes it his job to go out and see lots of films. He's seen the films we don't have time to, and this - I would say - allows him some position of authority over me when it comes to saying whether or not the film is good, not just in itself, but as a film compared to other films. He can't say 'You shouldn't have enjoyed this', but he can say 'There is less to enjoy in this film than there is in that film', or 'Your time would be better spent on that film'.

The question that I could ask of the above three paragraphs is 'Well, so why should we care if a film is a good film qua films? We can enjoy it in itself, isn't that all that matters?'

The answer to that is probably that all the films I've seen and enjoyed, the films I've got the most out of, have been ones that were reccomended to me in some way - by a reviews website, by a book, by a TV show - as good films, and that I don't think I would have gone to the trouble of seeing them if I hadn't learned about them. I'd have missed good experiences without the advice of others; and if I'd just taken the advice of other non-proffessionals there's still a lot I would have missed (I didn't find out about Metropolis or Battleship Potemkin from my friends, for example).

Now when I think about books in this regard the potential dangers of losing the critical discourse are terrifying - if people who can read Greek and Latin are not given a degree of authority to say, over and over again, that 'These books are worth reading', there is the possibility of the classics dissapearing overnight.

Likewise, we don't live in the 16th-17th centuries anymore, but the English literature of that period has more vitality to it than most of the things being written in English today - without someone to say 'These books are worth reading', and if we all just read things which seemed to be of interest to our non-proffessional eyes, we'd risk losing access to the life in those works which one needs to take time out to appreciate the value of.

To put it another way, there's nothing wrong with people reading Pam Ayres and enjoying it if they wish, but there is something wrong if people have no knowledge of where Pam Ayres falls in relation to John Donne. The corporate marketing and advertising structure we have now certainly brings unfair bias (money-making over artistic perfection), but it's not the only source that needs to be guarded against.
 
 
Saturn's nod
10:19 / 30.05.08
Now when I think about books in this regard the potential dangers of losing the critical discourse are terrifying - if people who can read Greek and Latin are not given a degree of authority to say, over and over again, that 'These books are worth reading', there is the possibility of the classics dissapearing overnight.

Likewise, we don't live in the 16th-17th centuries anymore, but the English literature of that period has more vitality to it than most of the things being written in English today - without someone to say 'These books are worth reading', and if we all just read things which seemed to be of interest to our non-proffessional eyes, we'd risk losing access to the life in those works which one needs to take time out to appreciate the value of.

My perspective on this is shaped by 1) the awareness that this loss from canon is exactly what held back feminist consciousness over centuries and 2) my religious education in possibly the least hierarchical christian denomination.

The loss of writing by women has occurred in every generation over hundreds of years due to the value systems of those who controlled formal education and this dynamic is still in action; it is still hard to get hold of some incredible works of feminist scholarship, for example those printed by independent women's presses in the 1970s and 1980s: women's generally greater poverty and lesser access to financial backing affect this, as do notions of 'what white males do' as being the most worthy. Dale Spender's Women of Ideas ... (1982) is one of my favourite examples, both because in it her arguments and evidence illustrate the loss of women's scholarship over centuries and because it can be difficult to locate a copy!

So from my perspective, such grievous losses of scholarship are already part of how things have been happening since literacy became widespread. My opinions on artwork, my commitment to critical engagement and conversations are a result of that awareness: the awesome scholars and artists whose work I read and benefit from may have no other advocates, especially not high status or high profile advocates.

However, this is where the second part of my perspective comes in. My religious education could be described as hapahazard, and yet I have never lacked recommendations for books, films, and other sources to read. It is personal informal recommendations that led me to our church's classics such as Samuel Bownas' Qualifications (1750) or Walter Wink's Powers trilogy (1984-1992) or Caroline Stephens' writing in the 19th century. (To such an extent that Quakers I know are sometimes critical of themselves/each other because our communications can be limited to 'have you read ... ?' rather than engaging in the more useful but also more demanding task of exchanging our more substantive impressions and being willing to speak and write from our own experience.)

I think the most important factor is engagement in a conversation of critical consciousness. I think it is inevitable that works of great value will be discovered retrospectively, perhaps by their tracks in the works of others or by chance mentions in conversations. I know of examples where a single activist has managed to get a long-forgotten manuscript into print by subscriptions and campaigning. I suppose I have faith or at least hope that 'all of us' will keep track of most of the important things; I cannot trust a limited pool of experts endorsed by media access or prestigious institutions in the same way, because white supremacy and patriachy so badly skew the selection of those public experts.

I don't think it is realistic to regard education in any other way than as haphazard, given the great diversity of material in existence: any curriculum is a selection. Once a person is engaged in self-education, reading, reflecting, and conversation, that person is evaluating sources themselves and can identify people who claim greater expertise, who may be able to lead them further. I don't rely on professional expertise as much as I rely on conversational community amongst the activists and thinkers I know.

I don't think that nonhierarchical arrangements prevent the development of expertise; folk music was discussed as an example art form upthread. There are awesome folk musicians who make a decent living from their art. Likewise, there are people who make a living even amongst Quakers from helping other people educate themselves, which I see as the foundation of critical consciousness. I think since the internets are making it ever easier to distribute and archive artwork, it's possible we are less in danger than previous generations of an accidental complete loss of art by creative people who lack self-promotion talent.
 
  
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