There is unrest in the world.
Arguably, this has been going on for some time and we are just now realizing the utter chaos that we have reaped. Corporations are weaponizing civilians with class warfare with the rhetoric against unions or higher wages, politicians are leading people on with false promises designed for suppression and forcing people to believe in hate and anger as the answer, the environment is in the pits due to willful ignorance, and those borne to privilege are seeking to maintain their footholds through nefarious means.
It can feel like so much is against us. Artists, usually a sensitive and tumultuous bunch, are feeling the impact of anger and fear. I’m struggling to call NFT sellers artists because I don’t find many are. I mean the people who struggle day in and day out with their creativity against all odds. The single parents who put their kids to bed at 9 and work on their novel until 3 am, the students who are in STEM for apparent job security while still painting in their dorm rooms to find some sort of relief, or the musicians playing on the corner at night while in the morning going to work at lower level jobs just to pay bills.
As I write this, I am struggling against two variants of chronic illness. One, being my bipolar disorder, and the other being a yet unnamed illness that is slowly destroying my physical capacities. Yet everyday I feel compelled to in front of my computer, typewriter, or notebook, and let something out. Whether it is for an hour or ten minutes, that something arrives like a firestorm or it seeps in like water in a basement. At times, I pick up my paint brushes and make subpar little paintings just to ease the tension in my mind. Were it not for the support of my family, I’m not sure where I would be. Perhaps not here. I continue to make art in some form though I am not so sure it is any good, because I feel drawn to do so. Like it is a universal tug from a chaotic gravity to continue to regurgitate the thoughts within my mind in the form of a story that means something. Much of my writing never is exposed to the eyes of others. That isn’t always the point of what I do.
Art as Commodity
Many more people are waking up to this sense of compulsion but fighting it as well. When you feel your surroundings so acutely, I wonder if it becomes harder to want to create. In times when it feels that beauty is under attack, it can feel utterly pointless. I spoke to a few artists of different mediums and a resounding feeling was ‘even I sold something, I still could not make my rent so I work and ignore my art now’. And that punches me deep into my gut.
I fell into this trap as well. When I began writing, it was for fun. The same with painting. But very quickly, others attached a price tag to it. “Can you make a living from it? What can you sell that for? You need to market to sell more”. There is nothing wrong with earning a living from your work, and I wish every artist could. But when your only concern becomes that, is it still art for art’s sake or a commodity?
An example I found of this was in several self-publishing circles, where, if your book series is not selling you should move on and try to find what sells. I struggle with this so much because while I enjoy sharing my novels, I don’t want to feel dictated to either. It creates a sense of suppression for creativity to be so laser focussed on selling that you compromise on what you really want to do. Yet self-publishing isn’t any more guilty of this than traditional. The big houses and indie firms alike both want the next big thing and want to avoid any risk. The pervasive literature greats of yesteryear may never have been published under such circumstances. Agents have to earn money and they too have to avoid risky ventures. It is hardly the fault of editors or agents. Their circumstances are dictated by a market and the market is formulated by shareholders and top earners.
I have struggled the past few years with reading any books that have come out. I could never put my finger on why. I used to love delving into new worlds and certainly many have been produced in the past two years alone. But the big push toward a sense of trope sameness has led to a stagnation as well. I still remember in my childhood falling in love with the Discworld novels, because no one had done satire and fantasy in such the way as Terry Pratchett could. Now I fight to give my attention to much else.
More often, I’ll pick up a history book and try to find patterns comparable to now. And there are certainly parallels. Yet, why couldn’t I just fall in love with a book again?
A Sense of Ennui
Talking about this with friends of mine, I realized I’m not the only one struggling with this odd listlessness when it comes to being creative or experiencing the creative world. Several have told me that they just don’t get excited about much anymore. There’s no art movements they love, no books they’re excited over, and no movies they’re dying to see. Even people who paint feel like they are going through the motions.
A shining example of disinterest is toward the MCU-Disney collaborations. I’m picking on Disney because they’re so large. While the actors and VFX artists are great, it isn’t necessarily the movies themselves that have caused such disinterest among some people. It is the rate at which they are being released and effectively shoved in people’s faces. Time that should be spent on getting the acting right, the script shining, the VFX believable so it ages well… is being shafted. The recent crisis hitting the VFX circles revolves around the stress and unfair deadlines being imposed (a great article to jump to: https://www.thegamer.com/marvel-mcu-vfx-artists-deadlines-crunch-stress) . Instead, the stories and the real art behind them have become commodified and force-marketed until it has become ‘just another MCU movie’. You could point at the box office reports and go “ah ha! BUT they earned so much money.” Well, sure, but how long do people remember the movies as something groundbreaking?
There’s a real sense of disconnect in many mediums right now. The trend-hopping going on happens in cycles. At one point, movies focussed on the neo-noir sexy thrill (e.g. Basic Instinct) but then it became both out of date and almost saturated, so they became direct-to-video. Books go in spurts where you’ll see a ton of dystopia, followed by vampires, followed by angels, followed by rom-coms. It all happens. It isn’t necessarily a deliberate trend but one being followed by the market, desperate for extra $$. But, as you may notice, if you are a big fan of one of those sub-genres and themes, you’ll notice when an author doesn’t have their heart in it. It will show in little ways: flat characters, deux es machina, trite sub plots, love triangles… much of it is done to pad the book. And as the trend continues, you’ll see agents looking for other things to try to cleanse their own palate. The same goes with movie, music, and art mediums. Yes, the usual stuff gets its followers but when something that is newer or at least sounds fresh comes out, people flock to it either to listen out of curiosity or to shake off their sense of stagnation.
The funny thing is, those ‘fresh’ art forms have been there all along. They just haven’t been discovered yet or seeded in a way that people have seen match their expectations. The tiny book of poetry that no one paid attention to inspired that big romance novel or that historical event that most people forgot about inspired an epic fantasy series. You don’t know what influences what until you really start to look into things a bit more.
There’s an argument that we need marketing to know something is around and in this modern world that is often so. But when the market begins to dictate the art, is it still that person’s art or their idea of what sells?
Making Art When It Counts
Making art is hard when times are trying. Yet you could say that some of our best art comes from those trying times. What will be seen as fresh is often a reaction to current events. Even transgressive fiction pulls from this, with novels about child grooming or psychotic breaks reactionary and exhibiting more emotion in the story than often shown in news articles. Things in this world are grossly unfair at times for many people and the best reaction is to make some art for it.
I have a small bet going on with my mom that as things wind down for a while after a blow-up (so to speak, let’s hope the world doesn’t go kaboom) we will see an explosion of art. The stagnation that has been plaguing many artists will transform and become emotionally volatile, and artists in all mediums will begin to act out in the only way they know how. Writers, painters, VFX, singers, and more, will become more expressive but doing it for the art’s sake, not for the market’s. Some artists are already there. But the rest of us need to be far more open to doing what we want to do and not what is going to sell.
It just might take some time.