Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
"It might be that in cheerier times public attention goes and finds
musicians."

Perhaps. However, the public seemed to embrace music heavily in the
Vietnam era, and that was hardly a cheery time for our nation. Music
from that time really speaks to the clash of culture that was
occurring. 

My belief about music and art in general is that it is becoming more
personal in nature. It's a cyclic thing where we are going back to a
more traditional artist <--> fan relationship. Years of integration
have changed the definition of a success from "an artist pleases his
fan base" to "An artist is successful if they sell a million copies of
something". I think it's headed back in the other direction now. 

Artists are able to reach their fans directly now, and judge their
success by the effect that they have on their fans. Perhaps that is why
some of the above referenced artists seem more cult like? 

Before the Internet, they could have been successful to a very local
(geographic) crowd at a pub somewhere. Today they can be successful to
a very local (musical interest) crowd at a website somewhere. If that
feeds the artist, and perhaps a small ecosystem around him, you've got
the best of both worlds, a commune like cultural gathering and a
commercial success, all rolled into one convenient URL.
  

    
"What's your take on this Bruce? How do you think the internet will
affect news and the way people consume it? Do you think people will be
more or less informed?"

*Y'know, I once heard it said about the Internet that "the
architectural is political," and as soon as I heard that, I thought,
yeah: these seemingly arcane technical decisions are not value-neutral,
they really have consequence.  It would be a good idea if I spent a
lot of energy studying these.

*That was quite a while ago; nowadays every graduate with an MBA ggets
it about hacking intellectual property, knifing the baby, cutting off
the oxygen and busting up the value chain.  So we have a rather cruel
and decadent Internet now, full of barbed-wire, pirates and spammers,
but at least that put the kibosh on the notion that the Internet is
some kind of lucent immaterial cyberspatial noosphere.

*I also heard it said -- by the same guy, I think -- that "Point of
view is worth 80 IQ points."  Which means to say that informing people
more doesn't necessarily help their situation.  

*When I visited Russia, I used to ask people, in my harmless,
blinky-eyed, American-journalist way -- "what seems to be the problem
here?"  And I was amazed by the sophistication of the responses that
poured out of them.  Of course they knew their country wasn't a "normal
country"  -- the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wasn't even a
country, it was supposed to be some weird Marxist melange of soviets
and republics -- but I was stunned how "well-informed" they were.

They hadn't been "kept in the dark" -- they were all "enlightened."
Really, they had conspiracy theories that made the most vigorous
American conspiracy theories look like a pile of children's blocks.  It
was incredible how thoroughly and footnoted these ideas were, they
were like private theologies.  

But I never found two Russians with the same weltanschauung.  They'd
garnered up amazing idiosyncratic cobbled and mosaic'ed worldviews,
they were scholarly, deeply read and very thoughtful, but, frankly,
they were so well-informed they were helpless.  REALLY helpless --
like, seven Russians couldn't divide themselves up into two taxis.

If there's an American equivalent to these cerebral Russians -- I
dunno.  Maybe Ron Paul enthusiasts.  I never met two of 'em who wanted
to vote for Ron Paul for the same reason.  Paulists are brimming over
with heartfelt conviction at the same moment that they lack any
practical plan for governance.  

I mean, Ron Paul is a Texan crank extremist who makes even Mike
Huckabee, a Baptist preacher from Arkansas, look with-it and
street-level.  Ron Paul is the kind of utterly unworldly guy whom, if
you found him drunk in a Russian bar, you'd try to help him home
because he was so likely to freeze to death.

These Paulunteers are way Russian because they are Internet hacker
trivia freaks. They're incredibly "well-informed," yet they're so
poorly-socialized that their lack of common-sense inspires pity.

I dunno what to conclude from  this; except that the Russians finally
found their savior.  They got their Franklin Roosevelt.  He's kind of a
dictator, and he'd poison a man with polonium, or break up an
opposition party or newspaper, the way you or I would blow out a burnt
match. 

 The Russians are finally united -- in the conviction that this Putin
guy is just tops.  Their doubts and qualms are resolved and they
believe they're swimming in chocolate.

Go figure.
  

    
>>>"It might be that in cheerier times public attention goes and finds
musicians."<<<

Heh. The cheery Kennedy years -- "Camelot" -- produced some of the
worst pop music ever recorded. The oppressive Boss Pendergast era in
Kansas City was a time of some of the best jazz ever. The Reagan era?
The period when rap and hip-hop was in amazing ferment. 

The relationship between a political administration and what's going
on in popular music is tenuous, if it exists at all. You give too much
credit to Bush, <bruces>. 
  

    
"Not at all - not sure how I gave that impression."

You didn't give a negative impression. I was unsure which direction
you were taking the point, so I asked for clarification purposes only. 
My faulty communication there, I was too brief in my question.

I believe that this is the best direction artists could go in. It both
widens and deepens the playing field, allowing many new forms of
artistic expression to reach the audience that would gain enjoyment
from it. 

It will be interesting to continue watch the myriad changes coming
from all of these disruptions in the business models for creative
industries over the next few years. 
  

    
>>>"It might be that in cheerier times public attention goes and finds
musicians."<<<

Heh. The cheery Kennedy years -- "Camelot" -- produced some of the
worst pop music ever recorded. The oppressive Boss Pendergast era in
Kansas City was a time of some of the best jazz ever. The Reagan era?
The period when rap and hip-hop was in amazing ferment. 

The relationship between a political administration and what's going
on in popular music is tenuous, if it exists at all. You give too much
credit to Bush, <bruces>. 


*Well, could be; I'd never claim there was a meatgrinder crank for
producing human creativity.  I can't even tell when I'm gonna write a
short story.  About the one thing I can tell you is that the spavined
mechanics of short-story marketing and distribution systems don't have
much to do with it.

*Maybe we'll get brilliant political leadership in the next four years
(as if) and yet popular music will vanish from the face of the earth. 
It'll be back to playing banjos on the front porch for the delectation
of our friends.

*Can anyone confirm for me that the son of Sarkozy is a French hip-hop
producer?  If so, what with him and Carla Bruni, that's quite the
musical family... at least as presidential right-wingers go.
  

    
"The Russians are finally united -- in the conviction that this Putin
guy is just tops.  Their doubts and qualms are resolved and they
believe they're swimming in chocolate."

When you're thrown into complete chaos for a while, I suppose you can
take the polonium with the chocolate and breathe a sigh of relief that
somebody's got your back. To those he protects, the godfather is part
god, part father. 30 years ago, I would've sneered dismissal at this
sort of fealty as "undemocratic." Now I know that "democracy" is
impractical, probably impossible. It's comforting to believe that some
guy is making viable decisions, even if he's deeply flawed. We'll
accept "honest graft," but when the leader's draining the coffers and
breaching communal ethics, that's another story.

(#105 slipped in while I was posting.)
  

    
*Y'know, that was just great.  I enjoyed that.  I admit cheerily that
I was conflating, while s-mcfarlane there was disambiguating...  Kinda
the systole and diastole of historical analysis, really.


Hey, I try to stay cheery, meself, Bruce. My blood pressure won't go
up a tick, so long as you don't obviate those hairshirted greenies. 
;=)
  

    
<< (from Neal Soldofsky) 
When I said that the internet was too difficult to
control, I meant that if anyone made moves to limit what was great
about it, specifically the way it empowers people to distribute their
own media, people would freak out in a major way. I swear, there would
be riots. It'd be like trying to ban rock music. The kids would shit.
I'm sure that most ISP's have the ambition to ruin the internet, and
that plenty of politicians would consider letting them, but the kind
of public outcry you'd get would be too much. It's one thing to screw
with people's environment and country, it's another thing the screw
with their entertainment. And as the internet's importance in the
realm of popular entertainment grows, it's only going to get harder.>>



Sadly, I think your prediction is accurate here, Neal.  Bush can lock
people up for six years and deny them Habeas Corpus or any due process
of law; start a war under dubious pretenses that is now lasting nearly
a long as WWI & WWII combined; sanction more media consolidation of
those with the resources to fully report the "news"; allow his neocon
"base" of military-industrial supporters to plunder our treasury;
sanction unprecedented government spying on our own people, but the
level of protest is relatively minimal.  But screw with our internet
entertainment and wholesale rioting will result.  Entertainment has
become the absorptive panacea for individual apathy and alienation. 
Talk about the numbed indifference of our postmodern condition.

  
  

    
(>>>now lasting nearly a long as WWI & WWII combined<<<   In terms of
U.S. involvement in those wars -- 1917-18, 1941-45 -- yes. In terms of
the actual wars, not yet -- 1914-1918, 1939-1945.) 
  

    
boing boing readers are commenting on our conversation at
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/03/bruce-sterling-publi.html, if
anyone here wants to comment on their comments. I love the anonymoose
who says this is all "boring cliches, nothing useful."

"Bush can lock people up [etc].... But screw with our internet
entertainment and wholesale rioting will result.  Entertainment has
become the absorptive panacea for individual apathy and alienation."

I think you're overstating your conclusion... I'm not seeing apathy
and alienation. I'm seeing real outrage, even among Republicans. On the
other hand, there may be Forces at work that are beyond the politics
of nations... it's not clear to me that any amount of activism at mere
mortal/citizen level can make a huge difference. Eager to see what
happens over the next 12-15 months.
  

    
<there may be Forces at work that are beyond the politics
of nations... it's not clear to me that any amount of activism at mere
mortal/citizen level can make a huge difference.>

There are definitely forces at work beyond the politics of
nations...follow the money trail.  I agree with you that, at the
individual level, we are largely irrelevant, hence the apathy and
alienation (which may or may not be overstated).  

I guess this leads us to the earlier points made by Bruce that, to
solve our major global problems/crises, the scale of the solutions will
be huge and need to be delivered quickly.  Unless it's perceived to be
in the interest of the powerful nation-states and multi-national
corporations to affect such change, we will be in a heap of trouble
when that day comes.



 
  

    
Well, after a calm week of the holidays, Torino is jolting back to
giddy life.  I'm posting this on hired wi-fi at the airport,
where I'm awaiting a guest.  Then a design scheme with some
local wi-max advocates, and a bookstore appearance to support
a local blogging-culture enthusiast... and after that it
starts getting BUSY.

After so many years of this, I've learned to leave the mike
when people are still talking.  I hope we're all hear again
in 2009.  I also hope that we're describing an entirely
new state of the world that is practically unrecognizable.

Ciao for now

bruces
http://blog.wired.com/sterling
  

    
I'll have some of that chow, too, if you pass it over this way.,,

Hasta la pasta!

jonl
http://weblogsky.com
  

    
Thanks, guys. I haven't posted in this topic, but I've enjoyed reading it.
  

    

Thanks so much for joining us once again, Bruce. The past week has gone by
so fast, and you've left us with a lot to ponder. And thank you, Jon, for
once again being our moderator for this annual conversation. 
  

    

Love all the interesting perceptions zipping past one another in this
conversation.  Plenty to reflect on.

Thanks, Bruce and Jon. These annual events are a blast.