When I Say Anything Counts...
…I mean anything counts.
(Pencil on paper; pattern for new book)
This may seem off topic, but I swear it feels relevant: I like patterns and networks; I’m not particularly invested in examining the nodes of such things. It’s the ephemera between the nodes I like. The abstract floaty bits.
I suspect this type of proclivity is hard-wired. It’s as defining to my me-ness as my eye color and tendency to forget where I put my keys (to be fair, the keys are nodes and not patterns, so I tend to forget they exist until I have to drive my car to get the food I wish wasn’t required for my existing because it, too, is a node, but a possibly squishy or slimy node and those are insufferable qualities). Even if this trait isn’t something you experience inherently, it’s possible that I can explain it to you. Which is useful because…
…being unattached to nodes means I'm very good at not being attached to discernable attributes of achievement. And after going back and looking at the sludgy kiddie pool of social media after 4 years away, I have a whole new understanding (more of a suspicion, really, but for the sake of my ego I’m going with “understanding”) of why artists fucking hate themselves. Jesus jumped-up Christ on a cross, that shit is poison. It mimics a network, but it’s just a straight line of shitty performative emptiness, slid down the pipe of observation like a maker's fair version of the human centipede.
No one should be touching that shit. No. One.
The presentation of what it means to be an artist on social media is a grotesquerie. It is a monstrous amalgamation of what algorithms would think art is, if algorithms could think (don’t make me shout about AI). The benchmarks of followers, the weird forced emergence of trends (if I ever see another manicured hand making neo-surrealist tripe prints with a little press I will go out to my garage and hang myself with my extension cord), all of it is a lie. Stop. Listening.
I don’t know if there’s a way to use social media without it poisoning your mind. I know it feels like it’s necessary. And that’s probably the worst part. But, I guess this is one of those places where harm reduction might be apt, in lieu of the perfect solution. So here's my attempt:
The lie in the social media structure is that you have to somehow fit in to the algorithm to be worthwhile. You have to be an acceptable node. But that’s not how real networks function. Networks emerge in the ether from great complexity. Healthy networks cannot be strung between clone nodes. “Over-specialize and you breed in weakness. It’s slow death.”
I’ve been telling people for the last month that they can do ANYTHING for 365 and it counts. If you say you’re going to draw, any drawing counts. If you say you’re going to write, any writing counts. Even a line, even a single word. The only reason they don’t think they can do it is because they’ve picked up the notion that art (any art), must be this audience-ready performance of utmost perfection that can fit beautifully and effortlessly into the simulation of life that is the social media landscape. That landscape is the equivalent of us taking the worst part about being a person (lying about everything to seem effortless in front of others), suping it up on ketamine and crack, and torturing it just long enough to instill a sense of vengeance before arming it with a sledgehammer and sending it on its merry way to circle back and relentlessly beat us all to fucking death.
This isn’t the kind of enemy you fight with rage. It’s the sort of thing you chuckle at and then sidestep, letting it toss itself, flailing, sledgehammer clattering, down the stairs. It’s just ridiculous.
What you make counts. It always counts. Engaging with that creation, the abstract floaty bit that leaves behind the mark, the node, if you will, is what matters. Everything else is noise.