I’m not opposed to modernity, or the soul of a new machine. I fully embrace the inevitable process where innovation forces new ways of working that are destined to replace older modes. My specific concern is that the embrace of AI’s siren promise for innovation seems uncaring about its implications while simultaneously acting as a transformational agent.
Read MoreTHE LOOMING DARKNESS (PT 3 OF 3) -- REGRESSION
The thing about artwork is that while expertise can add meaningful substance to dialogue, even the uninitiated can be moved to feel something or get engaged. Art can influence us even if we’re not an expert. This is different than opinions about science or engineering or foreign policy, where uninformed declarations can actually be counter-productive. I don’t want to listen to an uninformed opinion about whether bridges should be inspected for safety. I want to be able to count on experts who can properly evaluate the safety of bridges.
Read MoreTHE LOOMING DARKNESS (Pt 2 of 3) — LEVERAGE
A culture built of people invested in creative enterprise is a culture that cares about building connections. Creative expressions almost always reach out. By its very nature art does not insulate itself from interaction; it pursues interaction. In times like these, when identity politics and political polarization press our self-interested faces into hand-held screens, the value of shared experiences becomes not simply a luxury, but a campfire on a bitterly cold night.
Read MoreTHE LOOMING DARKNESS (Pt 1 of 3) — RESPONSES
Idealists may think that art in its various forms can function as remedy for chaos and pain. The rise of Dada in the early part of the 20th century suggests otherwise. The peril here is that when ideologues try to use creative work as a mechanism for political or social coercion, the work instantly corrupts itself. Political forces have always used creative enterprise as a means of influence, but in its most trenchant expressions, art speaks for itself as a reaction to the world much more evocatively than when it’s wielded as an instrument of power.
Read MoreTHIS ISN’T REALLY ABOUT ANDY WARHOL…OR THE SUPREME COURT
I don’t mind angry art, I don’t mind sad art, I don’t mind disturbed art, or erotic art, or challenging pieces that ask me to pause and think. I don’t even mind “bad” art that I might choose to ignore. What bothers me are so-called artistic assertions that knowingly, consciously, conspicuously waste my time by pretending to be something more vital than they really are.
Read MoreTHE INFLUENCING MACHINE
Most of the time we don’t seek out fresh voices because fresh voices take work to take in. Even old fresh voices: most people these days aren’t going to stream an great chestnut from the French New Wave. More to the point, we are all inundated by information and increasingly complicated lives. Be honest: ordinary things are endlessly complex and often exhausting in the modern world.The inertia to shed previous skins and try something new holds the vast majority of us locked in habituated place. There’s a reason so much of the country eats at McDonalds as frequently as they do.
Read MoreHERE'S LOOKING AT NEW, KID
Nobody creates in a vacuum. Nobody emerges with a fresh take without already being fiercely and voraciously pursuant of something that foundationally has nothing to do with pure commerce. Money makes things possible, but money by itself has nothing to say. Artists with ideas look to other artists, and other people, and what comes before is always the genetic code for what comes after. Just like children, we may know the parents, but we can still scarcely predict where their lives will go.
Read MoreMY SOCIAL MEDIA DISAFFECTION
For people who try to live their lives in creative spaces, the trivialization imposed by a steady diet of social media has the effect of dissolving yet one more support in the foundations that enable sustained focus. That’s effectively like allowing thieves inside our mental castles in broad daylight: who can tell the thieves from the masses of other roving thoughts crowding the main hall of our consciousness?
Read MoreA FEW WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Where a picture maybe worth a thousand words, a few well-placed words can make all the difference to giving that picture lift and heft and context all at the same time.
Read MoreTHE SHAKY RETURN OF ART
Arts require stability as much as they require energy, and for new voices to speak, the people who propel those voices must be able to stand, to eat, to think, to dream.
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