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beccaelizabethI was reading through metafandom again and someone was talking about Art and Spirit and how Art is really about connecting with Spirit and not about all that stuff where lots of people buy it. It got a bit religious and possibly quite difficult to reply to if you don't want to get in a religion argument.
Also they set up a value binary where extraordinary=good and ordinary=bad and art is trying to be extraordinary.
I disagree on basic definition:
All things people create are to be useful and valuable in their lives. Art can be useful if it is extraordinary and stretches the limits. It can also be useful if it establishes, repeats or praises limits. Art fills many functions in people's lives, some of them quite ordinary. This is a good thing - ordinary is valuable every day.
If a lot of people buy something it's the next big thing, but the genres aren't big enough to be called genres if there isn't enough of a demand to support a whole lot of medium sized things and a vast number of small ones. Or to put it another way: the big things are the ones millions found valuable, there's millions of things one found valuable, and there's a whole spectrum in between. They might not be seeking millions. They dont have to in order to be valuable enough to all participants to be worth the effort. So a lot of stories similar to The Next Big Thing get written/published/bought... because the similarities are in things a lot of people find valuable.
Creation can be about the story you want to tell. It can be about the story others want to read. If you're lucky, these line up, and there's sales and writer happiness. Or in attempting to understand why so many want that story the writer might find something valuable. It is not inherently better to write for the wants of the one than the many.
I think I react strongly against the whole popular vs art binary because my primary medium is television. The show I studied most recently started out by figuring what audience it wanted - the whole family - and what characters that suggested - ranging from grandparents through adults to granddaughter - and then put together a TV show that would appeal to many people. And then it ran for 30+ seasons, getting up to 13 million multi generational often long term viewers, being innovative, lately praised by critics, and promoting ideologies of equality and diversity. Often by taking plots or genre elements others had already used and reworking them for the local specifics. You might not call that art. What would it be?
They also seem to draw a distinction between connecting to Spirit, connecting to the 'spirits of the tribe', and connecting to the spirits of, you know, people, as might actually watch/read etc. Which seems odd to me because then possibly imaginary and/or dead people are more valuable than alive ones. If things aren't selling, aren't popular, they aren't connecting to people, even their spirit parts.
I'm not saying that art must be popular to be valuable, or that sales only reflect the value to people, or that giving people more of what fits easily is always a good thing for society. Too many other factors, too many structural inequalities that stop some voices from getting out there enough to find popularity, too many times the easy comfy way is bad for others.
I just dislike it when words like 'pure' get bounced around about 'creation', as if we're spinning stuff out of the void to show to the void.
I'm making patchwork quilts here, from other people's leftovers, ready to give them away to other recyclers. And proud of it.
Also they set up a value binary where extraordinary=good and ordinary=bad and art is trying to be extraordinary.
I disagree on basic definition:
All things people create are to be useful and valuable in their lives. Art can be useful if it is extraordinary and stretches the limits. It can also be useful if it establishes, repeats or praises limits. Art fills many functions in people's lives, some of them quite ordinary. This is a good thing - ordinary is valuable every day.
If a lot of people buy something it's the next big thing, but the genres aren't big enough to be called genres if there isn't enough of a demand to support a whole lot of medium sized things and a vast number of small ones. Or to put it another way: the big things are the ones millions found valuable, there's millions of things one found valuable, and there's a whole spectrum in between. They might not be seeking millions. They dont have to in order to be valuable enough to all participants to be worth the effort. So a lot of stories similar to The Next Big Thing get written/published/bought... because the similarities are in things a lot of people find valuable.
Creation can be about the story you want to tell. It can be about the story others want to read. If you're lucky, these line up, and there's sales and writer happiness. Or in attempting to understand why so many want that story the writer might find something valuable. It is not inherently better to write for the wants of the one than the many.
I think I react strongly against the whole popular vs art binary because my primary medium is television. The show I studied most recently started out by figuring what audience it wanted - the whole family - and what characters that suggested - ranging from grandparents through adults to granddaughter - and then put together a TV show that would appeal to many people. And then it ran for 30+ seasons, getting up to 13 million multi generational often long term viewers, being innovative, lately praised by critics, and promoting ideologies of equality and diversity. Often by taking plots or genre elements others had already used and reworking them for the local specifics. You might not call that art. What would it be?
They also seem to draw a distinction between connecting to Spirit, connecting to the 'spirits of the tribe', and connecting to the spirits of, you know, people, as might actually watch/read etc. Which seems odd to me because then possibly imaginary and/or dead people are more valuable than alive ones. If things aren't selling, aren't popular, they aren't connecting to people, even their spirit parts.
I'm not saying that art must be popular to be valuable, or that sales only reflect the value to people, or that giving people more of what fits easily is always a good thing for society. Too many other factors, too many structural inequalities that stop some voices from getting out there enough to find popularity, too many times the easy comfy way is bad for others.
I just dislike it when words like 'pure' get bounced around about 'creation', as if we're spinning stuff out of the void to show to the void.
I'm making patchwork quilts here, from other people's leftovers, ready to give them away to other recyclers. And proud of it.