Art and Culture # 46: Art in Contemporary Life
-For the Uncensored!
(picture borrowed from contemporary art society on Twitter)
Art is neither simplistic nor should be confined by small arrows within a quiver. A confliction in creating such a dangerous idea is what you shouldn’t hold onto. Before technology qualified artists existence, artists needed a medium. Before a violinist enters his musical profession, he needs an instrument. A painter would need the ability to see colors. A writer needed a pen and paper before entering the world of literature. But Art in contemporary life is something unlike what others think and feel is needed. Now we can read and write on a desktop. But technology sometimes can’t help artists.
It comes from knowing what your station in life is. There are gifted individuals who can do various jobs in life. But not everyone should be gifted. Not everyone should be a jack of all trades. Art, to most should entertain. I do agree that art can entertain, and while entertainment is part of the world that society needs to be able to process complex thoughts. Entertainment can help society move forward from a tragic event in there lives. Sometimes Art doesn’t have to reflect the current mood you are in, or even address your situation itself. Art for me is always part of a happy accident. Art is the product of what happens as you are evolving in life. If you are evolving, your art will evolve as well.
Art should be able to heal, while doing the work that most parents can’t or won’t do. Tell the truth. Tell people the truth about there situation. Some people need to be losers and die in a ditch. Let them do it!
But sometimes, forgiveness is needed. Sometimes books don’t reflect either or scenario. Sometimes bad things happen and they will continue to happen. Chaos is the natural order of life. As Tim Dillon said, “You’re bothered by the why.” Chaos is the natural order of fiction. Maybe if people are meant to be entertained, then it has achieved its goal.
What contemporary life has become is a mirror upon the art which it has made. The melodrama of the suburbs has long since dwindled away. Books like “1984” by George Orwell always makes its way into politics, as the depth between art and life always seems to run side by side, but one version not looking like the dystopia it does.
If we’re only going to think about dystopias, horror stories have made a huge comeback during 2015 to present day, art seemed suspended in time. If you hate Art you ultimately hate yourself. If you hate Art because of your devotion to Donald Trump, I think you may need to rethink that too. If you hate Art because you were never popular during your time, that needs to be addressed too.
The problem I find with all this is if you, the artist, are more interested in what’s going on around you then trying to figure out your story, please stop writing. Go into activism. Art doesn’t always need to be dissociated from politics, and science fiction and horror can always delve into that. Just read Rosemary’s Baby and its sequel, Damian, in order to understand why politics and art can work well, but also Graham Green too. Horror is a cathartic effect that can soothe your soul after a long day. You can relate to art as you need to find your way through life.
Horror has become one of the most calming things that has helped me process life in an easier fashion. Horror books help us look at life with a little bit of cynicism that can save us at the end of the day. Clive Barker proves that with each short sentence that he creates a long lasting world that everyone can relate to. I mean, if you haven’t already read Clive Barker, he’s better than Stephen King. Yes, a hell of a lot better. Stop pretending that Stephen King is a good writer, we’re not 15 anymore.
Art can be fun and terrifying, even without some political aspects involved. Sometimes people just want to be terrified. But with contemporary existence, we do have a lot more to be afraid of. Nuclear war. Information war. But also the war within such existence of American life. A degrading America not at the height of what it used to be. But mythology is there to help us through dark times. To help us make sense of what we couldn’t, like religion. Science is not a remedy that most people choose.
Most people like to read science fiction, not believe in it. But sometimes a pure fashioned escape is the pure sense of enjoyment. Contemporary existence offers comfort but to work hard for it. We often don’t like difficult things that require too much of our time. But the more you can put into something difficult the more you can enjoy it. I get rather annoyed when I play an old game that requires you to use lives. I haven’t used that system since I was a child.
I guess we often see our factual inaccuracies in hindsight. But art in contemporary existence is often what an individual must fight for. Dominance in the digital arts. It’s about when the culture thinks of it at the moment. No matter the disgruntled effects of a video game system, there are rewards that go further than any Nvida[i] software will offer.
The human mind. The human mind in Contemporary culture has almost atrophied, died, to where nobody can look at it the same. Also, muscles. Muscles are overlooked in the culture of 2021. Being a soyboy is fashionable. The consequence of this plays apart in the fiction that most people write.[ii]
But at a certain time, masculinity needs to be understood, and cultivated once again. It’s about finding what you think is pure in the world and pursuing it. Which then doesn’t involve you sticking a needle into your arm, and saying, “Look at me I’m a drug addict, I’m an artist.”
And my answer is, “No. You’re not. You’re just a drug addict.”
Basquiat didn’t just do drugs, he made art as well. He didn’t live long because of it, but it doesn’t deny his artistry that he brought to his craft. If in contemporary society being famous for nothing is worth more than actually having an artistic output. I think that’s the worst occupation an artist can have. A talent in being nothing. If the world around us proves to value physical flesh then as in the digital age, it will only represent soft numerations in the brain. Such as the power within is the possibilities far outweighed the benefits. It’s a clear momentum of putting yourself first, and not the value you place within.
A bitcoin that isn’t worth much to the soul or the talent you put forth. The complication of surrendering onself to a lack of talent is contemporary art, at worst, and best, is no output of creativity. Not everyone can be a Kim Kardashian and make money from your looks. It’s too much work to bet talented and people not caring, in the end.
It used to be why people wanted day jobs, but in 2021, there is no perspective that helps me consider the final value a job with no benefits can have. If the destruction of art means that its valueless, there is only flesh in between the words.
As in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, “Long live the new flesh” is the flesh of society one more mark upon art and what we call into existence? It’s the failure within that proves that flesh is once more a secret coding that only we have to savor. But the true value in society is when you have talent that goes unappreciated. That turns you over in night causing you to look up at your wall in the dark and say, “What am I doing with my life?” When you have dreams about a job being a jail, a prison. You have to find out what it is that contemporary life offers, because in 2021, this excuse doesn’t exist anymore.
As with Onlyfans, a site that offers creators a place to sell there wares and there profile, proves that while porn can inhabit the same sphere as art, should it be valued as high? Not every woman can be a Jenna Jameson or a guy can be Peter North. Porn is not quite the same as being an athlete, but they are valued more than an artist can be in 2021.
But what occupation today does contemporary art prove that cynicism behind our true selves are worth more than the art itself? The more one edits the biographical information out of there art, it can prove far more useful when you can make up an existence that doesn’t actually take place. Making sure people have a sort of communication within. But does communication make us all understood or complicate the very words we speak? Will words be used without mouths?[iii]
Will these words just be one more memory among the bodies upon a utopic nation that will be worthless by the time these words are written? Maybe it already happened? But for new art to blossom, revolutions must be won. Sometimes maybe not all out warfare with bullets, but like Vidoedrome, a war on the mind.
That’s not a new idea, but with the notion of fermenting the soul within a soft shell of information, are we all lost in a state of perpetual chaos? If we aren’t meant to be pornstars or youtube personalities, is there nothing else but an office job? Is the burning memory of a talent we didn’t have worthless in 2021? So if the mind is at war and can’t process the art that exists inside them, art seems to be unaligned from within. If Chaos is once more a sense of art driving the sense of power once again, is Art always molded once again overwhelmed by the moment? Contemporary Art isn’t lacking style, but a new generation has to find it for themselves.
[i] A software and hardware engine that runs most games.
[ii] I don’t know another writer better than me, so it’s hard for me to judge my peers when they had no drive to be talented.
[iii] Elon Musk, in 2020, created a simulation within a monkey’s brain and helped him play video games in his mind.
-Louis Bruno is the author of more than 19 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline, Apocalypse Soldier, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Our Freedom Book https://www.ourfreedombook.com/thereallouistbruno17. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His next series, City of Sand is out now:https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/louis-bruno/city-of-sand/hardcover/product-rke9jz.html?page=1&pageSize=4. Also, if you can’t subscribe so that you can get members only content, please be sure to share the articles, as well. Every little bit helps in the war against Big Tech. Thanks for reading.