Content VS Art

I’ve written quite a bit here at Memoirous about being a content hack. Not really—though that’s how it feels, sometimes.

My last post and this one are about process. An attempt at clarifying or explaining to myself what it is I do. I am honored to once again receive a grant from the Illinois Arts council, but along with awards comes a tandem inferiority complex. Do I actually deserve this? Is it a fluk—an accident—and will be withdrawn once “they” discover I am a charlatan?

These emotions (or is it faulty reasoning? Either way I am convinced), by the way, are NOT helpful to the process.

I’ve been writing since age 7. Even before I acquired reading, I wrote in a code—hoping later to remember what those little symbols stood for. I desperately wanted to write a story. I believe my first poem was about a tree. It was wonderful! I was at the same time delighted to discover that many words rhyme with tree. The symbol for tree was very literal—it was more difficult finding the appropriate sign to represent the “filler” words, the ones that connected the visual ones.

I continue to have problems with those. I have the nut of what I am trying to say. Adding leaves to the tree and making it look, well, like a tree is the hard part.

So since age 7 writing has been my identity. Writing things down helps me to remember, record (journaling), and process life. Writing has helped to nourish me and as I feed it.

I’ve been reading Susan Sontag’s journal/notebook As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh 19640 1980. True much of what she says can be reduced—she seems to take the hard way around a subject. Is that convoluted? But she is very logical, which makes the path easier. She has random riffs on writing—always seeing it as an art form. That’s very encouraging.

Because technology seems to have rendered much of today’s art into content. Content, a word devoid of art. Content sounds so—utilitarian, a means to an end, an end to a mean. As someone who blogs I am constantly aware that I need stuff to make it happen. Often, to enhance a post, I’ll go on-line and “borrow” a photograph or download a video. Some bloggers embed music—a blog soundtrack—borrowed from the WORLD WIDE WORLD. It’s out there, all of it, anything we want. Photos, music, clips, snips, content. And, it has very little value.

Musicians are poorer today than ever before. Who now can actually make it in the arts—when much of the arts is considered FREE. Granted much, much, much more work is getting out there, being seen, going viral.

I love the www, the internet. My question is what’s next? How will the next generation of artists get funding—because even commercial artists are scraping by and mainstream publishers (please God!) are just now realizing that hefty advances to known celebrities are not paying out. Things go away to come back as something else—or they used to. But, maybe with global warming, they will simply go extinct. Exist in a Wii world, inside a game.

Newspapers

Radio

TV

Books

Theater

Dance