something that i really want to write or make a video about is the slow death of "spirit" in creative circles (consider this a "work in progress"). these "creative" circles are becoming more like "creation" circles. what's the difference between the two?
creative circles are about the things behind the creation -- imagination, the spirit, the principle of expression. creation circles, however, are explicitly and only about making products. in creation circles, the spirit is irrelevant. the motivation for creating things is to assemble and release a product to be consumed. the artistry is not only largely irrelevant, in some cases it's actively discouraged.
creative circles and creation circles are the paint on the painter's palette. to make "something" in society is a mixture of these two colors of paint.
art is not always a product, and a product is not always art. realistically, a thing you release into the world is going to be a mixture of these two, leaning more towards one or the other way but not fully committing. even the most product of products often has some semblance of artistry involved. look at the signs around you, the buildings around you, the way the things you use every day look. look at the media you engage with. oftentimes, you can tell when something is created with or without artistry at least partially involved in its creation.
a featureless metal box is not intended to evoke anything other than a place to work or a place to live. it is functional, but it has no feeling. compare this to something like a church, which is built with fixtures and shapes that evoke something.
This is an exceptionally good and NEEDED post. The only thing I feel that's lacking in this is the specific wording in the next to last paragraph which says, "our collective spirit is dying." This feels like an unintentional instance similar to when a "news" organization uses a passive voice as an "exonerative voice" when talking about the crimes of police or soldiers. The previous sentence places the onus upon "capital, industry, and technology" which is why I KNOW that this is an unintentional wording. It happens and isn't a big deal, and as a work in progress I feel pointing it out can help improve the final message. In that effort I'm going to expand on that point here as it's super important.
It isn't just that our collective spirit is dying. It's that capitalism is murdering it. We exist in a capitalist system which enforces spiritual starvation through a lack of resources. The continued increasing precarity of human beings as they each attempt to continue EXISTING is leading to coerced choices to use our limited time in the act of creation for the reward of capitalism tokens which will be used for the expenses of basic survival. This is true from the top of creativity based endeavors to the bottom of creativity based endeavors.
Creatives who are employed by massive corporations to create bland heartless gruel for mass market consumption may be nominally higher paid but to remain that way they are coerced to sacrifice creativity for soulless creation. Those creatives further down the economic ladder are coerced in the same way even though they APPEAR to have more autonomy. For the most part the only autonomy they have, however, is the choice to significantly increase their chances of starving, going homeless, and suffering and dying of medical conditions OR to abase themselves for the dignity of stale bread. In this way, no ethical consumption under capitalism also means, "no ethical creation under capitalism."