Jun 15, 2023·edited Jun 16, 2023Liked by Alexander Hellene
This. This is why I'm really starting to believe that precious few modern artists, regardless of chosen field, subsist within the confines of reality rather than their medium. Whether you face reality and express that within your work, or you seek to escape the reality you have faced by way of your work, the state of the world in and of itself has some influence. However, there so many more people who are brought up within an insular environment where you draw on others' work rather than any interaction with the real world. Hence why so many works become alien and alienating, not out of structure nor aesthetic, but purely because they come from a place of detachment.
Do you think the hermetic nature of the internet has caused this? Why go outside and do stuff for inspiration when you can base your work on the fifth-hand emotion of other pop-cultural product.
I think it's a combination of that plus attending art schools and colleges. When you spend a substantial amount of time isolated from the real world, focused on the study of your field and experiments therein, a lot of your work reflects what you learn rather than what you've experienced. It's why you never tell a young writer to "write what they know," because 99% of what you'll get is maudlin relationship drama.
I'd argue that the internet has compounded this because we have more access to every single artistic form in human history than ever before. 4K scans of fine art, legendary films available in a variety of forms, and millions of books and records of music from across human history. We have the modern Library of Alexandria of the Arts. Why put up with reality when you have the chance to get lost in that?
And the funniest thing is, most people won't even dig deep into that library because, like you've said, they're more likely to gravitate towards perpetually reinterpreting modern pop culture than to learn beyond any syllabus. Again, people are constantly told "write what you know," and so they subsist on absolutely vacuous product in the hopes of somehow making theirs "different from the rest," when the core problem is no one has really grappled with reality in their work, even the "realists" and the "indie dramas" who are given more towards sociopolitical diatribes than an actual examination of the real world.
That's my favourite stonetoss comic.
He don’t miss.
This. This is why I'm really starting to believe that precious few modern artists, regardless of chosen field, subsist within the confines of reality rather than their medium. Whether you face reality and express that within your work, or you seek to escape the reality you have faced by way of your work, the state of the world in and of itself has some influence. However, there so many more people who are brought up within an insular environment where you draw on others' work rather than any interaction with the real world. Hence why so many works become alien and alienating, not out of structure nor aesthetic, but purely because they come from a place of detachment.
Do you think the hermetic nature of the internet has caused this? Why go outside and do stuff for inspiration when you can base your work on the fifth-hand emotion of other pop-cultural product.
I think it's a combination of that plus attending art schools and colleges. When you spend a substantial amount of time isolated from the real world, focused on the study of your field and experiments therein, a lot of your work reflects what you learn rather than what you've experienced. It's why you never tell a young writer to "write what they know," because 99% of what you'll get is maudlin relationship drama.
I'd argue that the internet has compounded this because we have more access to every single artistic form in human history than ever before. 4K scans of fine art, legendary films available in a variety of forms, and millions of books and records of music from across human history. We have the modern Library of Alexandria of the Arts. Why put up with reality when you have the chance to get lost in that?
And the funniest thing is, most people won't even dig deep into that library because, like you've said, they're more likely to gravitate towards perpetually reinterpreting modern pop culture than to learn beyond any syllabus. Again, people are constantly told "write what you know," and so they subsist on absolutely vacuous product in the hopes of somehow making theirs "different from the rest," when the core problem is no one has really grappled with reality in their work, even the "realists" and the "indie dramas" who are given more towards sociopolitical diatribes than an actual examination of the real world.
It’s very hard to write a convincing story of heartbreak if your only experience with heartbreak is movies about heartbreak.