the progress of process; or, the grace of the interface

I'm at Ideas Transform, a Culture Camp happening at Kitchener City Hall at the moment.

At table 1 right now, we're discussing art, led by Sunshine Chin (and later, Kevin Sutton). Not criticism or appreciation or technique, but rather art as a service industry and why, in this region at least, there's a surplus of artistic production but a general malaise of artistic engagement in the community.

The conversation revolved around market pressures, tools of production and distribution, value, and consumption. It all smacks of the Horkheimer and Adorno article about the culture industry and the politics of mass produced and re-produced culture. Not art necessarily.

I dunno. I tend to think of art as a subversive activity: something that goes against the grain, turns preconceptions on their heads, and forces the "consumers" to consider culture in a different way. Subversion isn't necessarily the most marketable thing out there... except for, oh you know, punk music, skateboarding, vintage clothing...

update: Brock just said that for him "Facebook is becoming less and less relevant. It's full of garbage."

... carrying on, I think that the marketability of art & culture has more to do with value-adds and distribution than content. Content drives things, like web traffic for instance, or repeat business, innovation, and other creative enterprise. The art itself isn't really the commodity - it's tough to sell or place a market value on expression because it's so generally diverse and incomparable - but the experience/time that's trade can be given a price... right?

So, producing art seems to be a contention that underscores this discussion. I mean, art is a priori a process that never ends. Creativity in general is something that happens at points of contact, by the grace of the interface, between an object (or moment because art is an event horizon, not static) and a subject (a person, like you, with specific and individual experience).

We're moving on to jamming on creativity as a right.

Or should I say rite. Yes, I think so.

Artists, or other creatively-awakened persons, are also the most likely to consume artwork. But again we're confronted with the affect/effect of art versus getting it out there. The key is knowledge-based agents who guide, connect, present, mediate, and provide us with the all important context for art.

Okay. back to it.