51–60 of 188 posts
> There is another definition of freedom which simply says, “In whose service is perfect freedom.” By giving yourself up to the Lord, you free yourself of the narrow cage of your own desires and your own selfishness. ...and that's where they lost me.
I follow the contemporary art world pretty closely, and a feeling I often get is that it's merely a giant collection of individuals expressing themselves in a way that fits into the market system of galleries, museums, auctions, etc. There are of course artists focused on political causes, but for the most part it is entirely devoid of any centralized ethos or ideal. While this situation is freeing for the individual…
Yes and: What of all the non-famous artists?
I know nothing about (contemporary) art. But my SO attended Gage Academy, an atelier model org intent on training working artists. (Versus most higher-ed art studies which train degrees in art.)
> ...but for the most part it is entirely devoid of any centralized ethos or ideal.
The Gage artists give a lot of thought to balancing individual expression and earning a living.
If there is a shared ethos or ideal among this local community of artists, I'd guess it's: how to keep making art.
I'm not seeing this is a problem of individual self expression. At least in the way it's described in this article, which I understand is to be, we're all over the place expressing ourselves in different ways and we can't come together on singular, or central topics.
I see trends, in art, specifically movies where the writers are definitely clued-in on the troubles of the time.
I think the actual problem is politics itself, which is kind of an artificial construct that puts people together for causes that are not their own, or even not directly supporting the common causes.
Because political movements end up getting co-opted by people that have vested interests in profiting off of, and controlling society for some specific benefit that does represent the will of the people.
I see local Grass-roots movements that are not politically motivated by some particular political party to be more representative of the truth and moving toward actual resolution for societies problems.
Maybe I'm talking about the same thing I just don't like the idea of politics itself, at least in the perspective of a party based system.
A great example of this is EFF podcast: Open Source Beats Authoritarianism [0]
[0]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/podcast-episode-open-s...
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We can probably travel the first clear instance of such self expression to the romantic era. Probably Goya who was the Spanish court painter but whose uncomissined black paintings were uniquely personal.
No I'm sure you can find clear examples of painting purely for self-expression much earlier than Goya. What's new-ish is that the structure of the art world/market is set up to incentivize self-expression.
Name one.
Perhaps one can mention artists like Caravagio and El Greco. But all such artists addressed themes that were common: the bible and the clasiics. The unique thing about the romantic movement was that they placed immediate human experience above god and godliness.
Honestly, check out Goya's black paintings and you will see what I am talking about. I challenge you to find an equivalent precedent.
Curtis expresses disdain for our generation’s reluctance to form groups and struggle for power. But I’m more inclined to think this is a good thing. Power struggle between groups is a zero sum game, while individual freedom is not. It’s true that individual freedom also leads to power structures, and that those can be oppressive to certain groups. But I think that problem is better addressed with individual and unive…
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That wasn't true in 2017, either. Though the author makes some interesting points, he conflates catalysts, causes, and cultural movements and just calls it all self-expression, and casually makes some rather eyebrow-raising assertions in the process. This reads more like an idea he was trying to hash it for himself rather than a well-considered piece.
Is this your first day on planet Adam Curtis? ;) I love his stuff but you really need to treat it as "thought provoking but utterly lacking in rigour". Treat it as a jumping off point for topics that might be new to you and as a nudge to view things from a different angle.
It's the end of a whole second-tier literary genre.
Great read. Thanks for sharing. I am not familiar with Adam Curtis' work but will be looking for more!
Got started with the series "All watched over my machines of loving grace". I think more engineers and technologists who build systems that affects people's lives at a large scale need to watch those.
> There is another definition of freedom which simply says, “In whose service is perfect freedom.” By giving yourself up to the Lord, you free yourself of the narrow cage of your own desires and your own selfishness. ...and that's where they lost me.
i don't think he's evangelizing, that's more meant to be an example.
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Is this your first day on planet Adam Curtis? ;) I love his stuff but you really need to treat it as "thought provoking but utterly lacking in rigour". Treat it as a jumping off point for topics that might be new to you and as a nudge to view things from a different angle.
In the post-LLM era, that just isn't good enough. Now that we have well-written automated probabilistic meandering text generation, "thought provoking but utterly lacking in rigour" copy is everywhere. Usually followed by a clickbait link. It's the end of a whole second-tier literary genre.
Part of Adam's appeal is the fact that behind it is a human being struggling to understand the world and struggling to explain it.
LLMs are incredible but nobody cares what a hyper-evolved Markov chain pretends to say about culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That wasn't true in 2017, either. Though the author makes some interesting points, he conflates catalysts, causes, and cultural movements and just calls it all self-expression, and casually makes some rather eyebrow-raising assertions in the process. This reads more like an idea he was trying to hash it for himself rather than a well-considered piece.
That pretty much sums up Adam Curtis to me and I would say I am quite a fan. He is an amazing propaganda film maker but have to take him with a huge grain of salt.