Hard News: Rough times in the trade
223 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
it was a form of knowledge
That's all I'm saying - look to the bigger picture about value exchange and results. Whole domains like librarianship and scholarship were advanced through those monastic efforts.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
That's all I'm saying - look to the bigger picture about value exchange and results. Whole domains like librarianship and scholarship were advanced through those monastic efforts.
Er... that happens to be my point!
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Sacha, in reply to
Then what are you arguing against in what I've been saying?
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I thought you were suggesting that by making the example of illumination I was fetishising form over content.
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Regarding 'new' journalism, isn't it now more than previously about getting the reader, viewer, tweeter, closer to the moment of detonation? Putting a camera in the hands of a refugee from Syria and asking them to re-cross a hostile border, or taking live footage from cell phones in the middle of protests. Do they teach that in journalism scool? We seem to be closing on the instant. Where do we go from there? And who decides what is real and what is propaganda? In that sense perhaps nothing changes.
With music we are also let into the artist's creative process, get previews, reviews and videos before official release. I would suggest a defining principle of modern media is impatience. I want it all, and I want it now.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
I would suggest a defining principle of modern media is impatience. I want it all, and I want it now.
We live in an age of instant completism. My partner's kid, in their 20s, watch tv and flicks completely differently than I do. They are so used to having the internet within reach that they look up every reference or person that grabs their fancy and quickly digest everything they can find, which in a lot of cases (such as music) is everything there is.
You play them a band they like, and next time you see them they know more about them than you do. It's wearying.
I'm a painter, and we totally fetishise form over content. A painting and its digital copy are quite separate things.
I've done t-shirts, though I just gave them to friends, and have strongly considered putting images on coffee cups before. And tea towels.
That said, I don't represent anyone except myself, but I think it fair to say that the last thing artists need or want is other people telling them what to do or how they should do it. We can look after ourselves.
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Sacha, in reply to
It's all content :)
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BenWilson, in reply to
You play them a band they like, and next time you see them they know more about them than you do. It's wearying.
Awww, dude, get a groove on! It's exciting that kids are so god-damned wired, something I could only dream of myself as a kid. I know it inverts the natural order when a kid knows way more than you about something, but the answer is not to feel embittered, it's to feel proud of your species. And try to learn something from the kids - there's still lots of things to teach them - information is not all, as Gio said. There's elements of character and certain kinds of discipline that kids are still in awe of in most older people, and could greatly benefit from good role models. If they liked a band you liked, that a compliment, says you can connect with them on taste. If you make art, there's not many kids who would see you doing it and think it was lame, or not wish they had those skills. Which they can't get just by looking up art on Wikipedia.
I know what you mean, though. Kids just have so much energy, so when they enthuse about something you like, it's quite daunting. Also, it can be more than a little annoying when you know about something from long painstaking training and practice, to a deep level, and then have someone disagreeing with you because Wikipedia says so. However, the ensuing argument can be fruitful both ways. So often, they're not actually reading the wiki correctly due to that lack of background. Also, your own opinions could be controversial, or contextualized in a way that makes them really only apply to your situation, and it helps to be reminded of that (even if it also hurts - it's like brain training. You come away sore, but each time you can lift more).
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
We can look after ourselves.
Ah, that must be why all those competitions for funding with Creative NZ never get any applicants, or why nobody took up the artists on the dole scheme, or why the NZSO sends back all those cheques. I had been wondering.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
Ah, that must be why all those competitions for funding with Creative NZ never get any applicants, or why nobody took up the artists on the dole scheme, or why the NZSO sends back all those cheques. I had been wondering.
I'm sorry, but I completely fail to see your point here.
Are you saying that, because people apply for public funding, other people should then tell them what to do and how to do it?
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Are you saying that, because people apply for public funding, other people should then tell them what to do and how to do it?
No, I'm actually on record saying the opposite. However, we legislate things like copyright and we fund writers and artists because we have a stake in how these things play out. Which is why I think the debate needs to go beyond "leave the creative people alone, they'll be all right".
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Sacha, in reply to
information is not all
Sure isn't. Knowing where it fits in and what you can do with it is far more valuable. And that's probably where more of the work will be moving to.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Looks like Gio took you out of context. You said you could look after yourselves, but you weren't meaning financially, you surely meant that you don't need a bureaucrat telling you how to do your art.
That's the same exact complaint my sister often gives, who is always applying for grants for her choreography work, that the fine line of helpful input is most often crossed into patronizing meddling and requests to make the art considerably more superficial, because the people controlling the grant money are so often not literate in the art they are supervising. Indeed, some of them even act like hateful welfare case managers, with criticism that roves into every life choice. Quite galling to get that from people who don't even make art.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
However, we legislate things like copyright and we fund writers and artists because we have a stake in how these things play out. Which is why I think the debate needs to go beyond “leave the creative people alone, they’ll be all right”.
Who is the 'we' here?
Yes, the State funds some artistic activities. And quite right. However, that does not give anyone a stake in the work that results other than the artist(s) involved. You don't abrogate your artistic freedom and moral rights by accepting public funding.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
Looks like Gio took you out of context. You said you could look after yourselves, but you weren’t meaning financially, you surely meant that you don’t need a bureaucrat telling you how to do your art.
Oh right. Yes, I did mean that. Or, rather, not just a bureaucrat but anyone.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
You don't abrogate your artistic freedom and moral rights by accepting public funding.
Once again: I am with you on that one. I just think society has a stake in how the commerce of art works.
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Here is art for you, without notice, prior consultation, policy development or debate - from the man who gave you the budget comes SOP 247:
House of Representatives - Supplementary Order Paper - Tuesday, 14 June 2011 Telecommunications (TSO, Broadband, and Other Matters) Amendment Bill Proposed amendments
Hon Steven Joyce, in Committee, to move the following amendments - The main effects of this Supplementary Order Paper are that it—
--makes changes to provisions relating to deemed TSO instruments and removes references to the KSO (Kiwi share obligation) (new clauses 6B, 7A, 7B, and 23HFA). These amendments are to reflect that the KSO will not be operative following the structural separation of Telecom:
Getting rid of the Kiwishare obligation will stuff up free local calling, emergency and rural services and NZ ownership/control and allow whatever “Telecom” morphs into to undetake price gouging without check.
Steven Joyce an accomplished rort artiste, a grand master.
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Sacha, in reply to
Yes, the State funds some artistic activities. And quite right. However, that does not give anyone a stake in the work that results other than the artist(s) involved.
Try getting public funding for anything else without some strings attached. I agree they should be strings overseen by people with enough expertise, and only related to the (minimal) public interest components of the work.
And yes, all things considered it might be most effective just to hand over the dosh with no conditions at all. Oddly we don't hear that argument in other areas of public funding.
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Sacha, in reply to
I just think society has a stake in how the commerce of art works.
Well put.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
I just think society has a stake in how the commerce of art works.
As far as I'm concerned, society can fuck right off.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
As far as I'm concerned, society can fuck right off.
Very good then.
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Sacha, in reply to
society can fuck right off.
along with its wallet, mate
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
Try getting public funding for anything else without some strings attached. I agree they should be strings overseen by people with enough expertise, and only related to the (minimal) public interest components of the work.
Yes, of course all public funding comes with quite proper conditions attached.
However, at least publicly funded NGOs get treated like they are – a health clinic has to treat patients. Art, on the other hand, gets treated not as art but as some kind of glorified tourism advertisement or branding exercise.
For example, there are these light boxes on Courtenay Place, and the council put out a call for applications from artists for works on the theme of rugby and patriotism etc for during the world cup. (Look what we have to put up with!)
I have some things to say on nationalism and patriotic pride, but I didn't bother applying.
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Sacha, in reply to
at least publicly funded NGOs get treated like they are
Researchers and innovators seem similarly unimpressed as artists.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Art, on the other hand, gets treated as some kind of glorified tourism advertisement or branding exercise.
Couldn't agree more.
along with its wallet, mate
On that point too I must concur with David - society funds art because it recognises its value, which is critical as well as aesthetic. So funding can't be subject to art being compliant, consonant with the ideology of the day or even polite. Which is why I thought the bullying of Tao Wells last year - and from The Listener, of all places - was so emblematic.
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