Art For Art's Sake
When I started this newsletter, I had every intent of filling it up with Deep Thoughts about art, culture, comics, and what have you. Several months in and I’ve not actually done that yet, mostly because of impostor syndrome—why would anyone want to hear my nonsense, right? But hey, people are subscribing, so I may as well shoot my shot, and I did have some thoughts that I posted on social media recently that I think might be worth fleshing out for my first essay.
I’m concerned that there’s a decline in the standards of art right now. I’m not talking about the public’s tastes; I’m talking about the standards from the venues that traditionally pay artists and creators for their work. I’m deriving this partly from the fact that AI is starting to worm its way into actual respectable publications: as illustrations for magazine articles, for instance, or (infamously) as the opening sequence to the Marvel series Secret Invasion. There’s a general sense that some of the people who lay out money for this stuff have decided that it’s good enough—not REALLY good, just Good Enough—that they can cut artists and creators out of the loop, and thus keep the costs down. They’re willing to toss standards out the window to keep the Content™ flowing.
This is worrisome, but it might also be, as Homer Simpson put it, a “Crisi-tunity”.
Let me try to explain.
As much as I hate blueblood old-money types, that kind of wealth did carry with it the assumption that you had to at least PRETEND to be refined, and until fairly recently that meant being knowledgeable about culture and supporting the arts. The classic patronage thing, back to the nobility, then through to people like Andrew Carnegie, who burnished his reputation by being a patron of the arts. Even the Koch Brothers funded a lot of culture through their various organizations.
The techbros and capitalists who control the money now don't have that lingering cultural noblesse oblige. They literally don't understand artistic quality or cultural value, hence AI being their thing. Which of course is making jobs in artistic sectors hard to come by.
There was a post on Bluesky recently in which a guy snipped out the face of the Mona Lisa and had AI generate a replacement. The result was hilariously awful (as ever, I’m not going to link AI here). Even the poster wasn’t trying to argue that it looked great, but that it was “good enough”. Again, this is the attitude being imposed from the top, which is trickling down to cultural gatekeepers (editors, publishers, studio heads) who MAYBE have a bit more taste but want to save money more, and also want to get in on the latest craze.
So the result is that the people with all the money are less likely to give that money to creators, and the creators they DO bankroll are the less interesting, superficial, flattering-to-the-current-paradigm shit. I'm not even talking about mass audience stuff, I'm talking about what the rich like to look at, apparently. It’s quite possible that most of the rich guys who funded galleries and ballet just liked to seem smart and discriminating rather than actually understanding great art, but nevertheless the art got funded. And some of them genuinely did spend their time pondering great art and developing refined sensibilities, to the point where there’s a go-to “fancy aesthetic” that we associate, rightly or wrongly, with rich people. Again: opera, paintings, classical music.
Mass audiences are actually the countervailing force to this! Mass popularity has been a counterbalance to the "high" arts as long as culture has existed. And it's traditionally been seen as vulgar and jejune and pandering, but it's also heavily informed culture in general.
Now I actually don't like to dismiss mass media as being inherently lowbrow, I think we can all agree there's a spectrum between art for connoisseurs and art for the masses and greatness can come from anywhere on the spectrum. But there's definitely a lot of pitfalls with "mass" art. For one thing, it’s commercialized because it has to appeal to a larger audience, as opposed to the “patronage” I mentioned above, where you only have to appeal to a small group, who may be more refined, or willing to appear refined. This mass art has also, historically, sometimes been a venue for propaganda and reinforcement of cultural stereotypes or prejudices—pulp literature being rife with racism and sexism, cartoons in wartime being avenues for bloodthirsty nationalism, and so on.
But a lot of culturally impactful and interesting stuff comes from “mass” art too—in fact, a lot of the best art and entertainment comes from the fuzzy border between “populist” and “classy” (which don’t actually have to be separate or opposed things, but I digress.)
The other issue with popular art is that, being gate-kept by money men, it tends to lean on the familiar. Even among populist stuff, people will flock to Batman shit and overlook a fun movie or comic or whatever that tries something new. Again, in this example, the fun new comic isn’t deeper or more thoughtful than the Batman comic, it’s just something that people hadn’t heard of before. That becomes a limiting factor. Though once again, having the studio or publisher's imprimatur is a big factor as well; they sell the stuff they find easier to sell, etc.
You DO occasionally get stuff that actually bubbles up from below to become popular, and it's usually a lot weirder and harder to categorize. Especially in the internet era, though the attention economy is distorting that, too. But that’s potentially where some of the most artistically exciting stuff is coming from.
Now I don't think AI art is going to replace artists forever, but it's going to dominate in the places where people would otherwise be paying artists for a while. It is, as everyone in the arts has been saying for a while now, going to make it harder to earn a living as an artist, or even make money on the side. Thus, people who could be pursuing their art will be forced out more and more by financial necessity, and even the people who might have a wealth cushion might find themselves pushed into the AI sphere, or if not the actual AI sphere then something adjacent. Because that’s what the rich people are into. So the call for art is shortening on both sides.
(Literally as I was getting ready to post this I came upon this report from David Gerard, who writes on this stuff, where he predicts the AI bubble is likely to burst within a year, possibly taking down a lot of tech with it? Unless they come up with a new scam, fast, which I’m sure they will at least try to do.) https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2024/04/11/pivot-to-ai-hallucinations-worsen-as-the-money-runs-out/
I like to think the massive pushback against AI art will shorten this window of time in which artists are going to be struggling, but we'll see. Art is unfortunately going to be veering into "mostly a hobby" for people for a while now. It sucks. Artists are correctly told not to work for free but anyone who wants to make a living is probably going to have to struggle through a few lean years of putting out content for no real payoff.
At least, that's the current paradigm. There could be something that comes along and disrupts it (ugh) tomorrow. But I do think the medium to long-term result is that there might actually be a swing towards support for cool and interesting art from below.
I’m not sure it’s enough to claim it’s consolidating as a trend but there do seem to be examples lately of people getting interested in edgier, weirder, less mass-produced art. Some of strange and fascinating videos and interactive art online have been breaking through. Webcomics have been making a bit of a comeback. In my hometown of Toronto, there’s been a lot of discussion about the burgeoning audience for indie, cult, and retro film among younger audiences (One article, for instance: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/toronto-s-indie-cinema-scene-is-booming-it-s-a-different-experience-than-like-the/article_7ea2e81f-42c1-56ea-99c1-2e59400bde59.html )
If you’re a TV fan you’ve probably heard a lot about the boom and bust of the streaming networks, which led to an explosion of oddball auteur stuff, and is now apparently drying up. I think that seems like it’s going to be happening more and more in the mainstream entertainment market…and the replacement, for a while, is going to come from indie people making stuff in their basement and putting it online. Even as the avenues to make money from art are narrowing, the interest in genuinely unique and personal art is going to start booming. At least, that’s what I predict, for the next few years.
I'm not an artistic success, though I'm still hoping to gain an audience and I think it's still possible. Inasmuch as I've observed a pathway to artistic success I would say it's: keep your day job, plug away at your art, keep getting better, keep generating more stuff and keep it in front of people's faces.
From what I can see, the artists who came up to "something" from nothing (if not wild success) were the people who kept their art coming and then one day got a lucky break, attention from a big name or a confluence of occurrences that made everyone suddenly pay attention. I know of at least a few firsthand examples of artists who kept producing art largely for themselves and a very small audience, then were suddenly and abruptly “discovered” and started genuinely profiting from their work. It’s not a linear process, and that can be dispiriting, but there does seem to be a point in which you can suddenly hit escape velocity.
Anyway. It's a little grim right now but there's always going to be a demand for art. What we really need is some stability, and unfortunately that looks like it's crumbling. I don't know what to say except...keep making art and look for the new thing. It’s coming. That’s the great thing about art. And as long as you’re doing the cool thing, you’re accomplishing something. It’s the money that’ll ebb and flow, erratically…but if you keep doing what you’re doing you might wake up and find the river flowing to your door. Or maybe you won’t. That’s why ultimately the art has to be made for you, not anyone else.
STARFORCE PENTACLE
From 2017 to 2022 I had a webcomic called Starforce Pentacle. It was, in retrospect, pretty weird, because it was my attempt to do chaos magick through comics, in the same way Alan Moore and Grant Morrison have done. Do I know what that means? No I do not. But this being chaos magick, I feel like that’s completely in the spirit of things, so I dived on in!
On the surface, it’s a space opera about wizards. (I mean, faster than light travel and teleportation are basically magic, so seems like interstellar travel would have to employ sorcerors, right? It’s only logical!)
Mary Sue Maxwell isn’t a wizard, she’s a cartoonist. But the world’s in such bad shape, it seems like anything’s worth a try…so she casts her first spell, to try and make things better. Next thing she knows, a team of intergalactic chaos agents are in her living room, and the entire planet’s about to face some serious disruptions, for good and for ill.
I’ve tried to invest this comic with magical energy and use it to explore the creative process, which is absolutely insane, but my life did actually get better since I started this comic in a lot of ways, so maybe I figured it out? At any rate, I think it’s pretty good, and Globalcomix allows me to present it in the format I always wanted to, in five page full comic format. The first two issues are now available!
https://globalcomix.com/c/starforce-pentacle/chapters/en/1/1 https://globalcomix.com/c/starforce-pentacle/chapters/en/2/1NIGHTBEACH: VAMPIRE BEACH PARTY
For Patreon subscribers, there’s a new issue of NIGHTBEACH available! Every year, the undead descend on Enigma Beach for a groovy happening that leaves a trail of corpses in its wake. This year, though, Brick’s got a plan…
https://www.patreon.com/posts/nightbeach-beach-102777642WHAT MAD UNIVERSE?!?
And finally, What Mad Universe?!?., the podcast where I and my pal Philip delve into the history of SF, fantasy, and pulp literature, continues to update on the regular. In the latest episode we’re joined by pal James Reilly-English, aka Ing, for another in our series examining Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. This time out: The Watch, about the perils of law enforcement in a magical interdimensional city, and the most fantastical premise of all: a police force that serves the public!
S4E115 -Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen: Whot's All This Then?
On Terry Pratchett's DISCWORLD: THE WATCH series
If you like all this stuff, consider subscribing to my Patreon, below, where you can get access to all this and more, some of which isn’t available to the public! I’ve also got a link to Bluesky, which is the social media site I spend most of my time on, below if you’re interested.
Stay Phantasmic!
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