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The Collapse of Criteria and the Prostitution of Art

March 4, 2024

art, creativity, ignorance, literature, mediocrity, social masses, social media, society, writing

In an interview in 1991 (I will share the relevant excerpt translated/transcribed in this post), the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis pointed out a sobering fact: We live in an era characterized by the collapse of criteria and the prostitution of art.

That is to say, Castoriadis argued, we live in an era with no criteria by which to gauge art. As a result, art prostitutes itself and loses its true meaning. It becomes industrialized.

There are two important elements in this very short excerpt I will discuss in this post:

Castoriadis naturally spoke before the internet and – especially – social media. I wonder what he would think about them.
Importantly, Castoriadis argues that art should create its own criteria.

If art should create its own criteria, and we observe a collapse of criteria today, what does that tell us?

collapse of criteria. image of Acropolis — The Acropolis of Athens, Greece. Each era creates its own criteria. Parthenon still stands, 2500 years later

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The Storytelling Cat – or, OK, I Lied

February 19, 2024

Fiction

art, book, creativity, fiction, literature, novel, writing

2 comments

Last December I said I’d likely never write another novel. And what did I start doing before a month had passed? Writing another novel. Never say never and all that. The story of how this novel, The Storytelling Cat, came to be would make for an interesting essay on creativity and art in itself.

Later in this post I’ll explain more about the creation process, together with info on how to get the novel – a free download is of course available – but for now there’s something intriguing you should know: This book is unlike any other I’ve written; there’s a lot of peculiarity involved.

That the protagonist is a cat with human knowledge is the least odd thing about this book.

The storytelling cat book cover — The cover of *The Storytelling Cat* is one of my favorites (of my own books, that is), though I’m not objective. You see, I painted it myself!

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Dealing with Lack of Skills in Writing: a Misleading Premise

January 22, 2024

Writing

art, artist, book, creativity, fiction, literature, writing

2 comments

Writing, drawing, composing music, and basically every form of art consists of two components: the artistic one and the technical one. That is, to express ourselves artistically we must first and foremost have something to say, but it’s not quite enough. We must also have the skills to do that. So, what happens when we lack the skills?

We’ll talk about all this in more detail – and we’ll have to start with understanding that the term “lack of skills” is somewhat misleading – but first a couple of examples, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.

As a sculptor, I have a great artistic side. I can visualize forms, shapes, flows, colors and textures, and I can see my artistic ideas in material form. Piece of cake.

The thing is, I have precisely zero technical skills when it comes to sculpture.

I don’t even know how to hold a chisel (is that what it’s called?) let alone use it. So, practically, I am not really a sculptor.

On the other hand, though I lack the skills to play guitar like Slash, I’m “good enough” to be able to compose the music I want to compose – the art I want to express. I suppose you can call me a musician.

Writing, however, is a bit different. And this leads to certain misunderstandings and issues, as I’ll show you.

painting of a man; lack of skills — I only started painting very recently, since I always considered myself unable to hold a brush. Maybe I still am, but thank goodness for digital tools…

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