Work: Surviving the Arts

Work: Surviving the Arts

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Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts

–by Scott Pinkmountain

Some Rejections

 

“I’m not sure that your author platform is quite at the level necessary to launch a book of this sort. I suggest that you continue to establish and grow your platform so that you will be in a stronger position to pursue a book deal.”

“I think this is smart and wise, but I’m just not convinced that I can sell it”

“I’m sorry to say that I have unhappy news for you, which is that I don’t think I can sell this novel as is.  Each chapter needs to have an arc and end with a bang.”

“The book didn’t quite have the hook it would need to really stand out.” Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

Posted on by

Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

–by Scott Pinkmountain

A.I., Capitalism and Art

 

Given Stephen Hawking’s recent prediction of artificially intelligent computers ending the human race, I should have been less impressed (and perhaps more frightened) when my flight information for an upcoming trip appeared on my laptop’s Google map. I was baffled until I realized I was logged into my Gmail account on the same browser; Google had access to the information in my email, and had coordinated it across multiple Google services.

On my cell phone, however, I use Google’s map application without signing in. Not only does the flight information not appear on the map, but the app won’t even store my home address. Of course my phone knows where I live, where I do my marketing, my banking. But unless I sign in and give it full, cross-platform access, it’s not going to help me out as much as it could. If I choose to surrender my personal information, I may reap the full benefits of the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence. As we’re discovering, the key to artificial intelligence is not brilliant code or ghost-in-the-machine voodoo, but data: the data we provide when we give companies permission to track our behaviors and preferences on a microscopic scale. Continue reading →

Work: Sustaining the Arts

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Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

–by Scott Pinkmountain

Practice

Part 3: The Ocean

Even beyond this deep level of the mine, there are convoluted passageways that seem to go on forever and ever. They’ll be hidden or inaccessible at first, but the more familiar you are with this fundamental territory, the more comfortable you become. Your eyes, so to speak, adjust to the light, your lungs and blood adjust to the pressure and depth. You are accustomed enough with the shattering beauty and profundity of the infinite-seeming object that you can afford yourself a look around for something else. You gain enough trust in yourself and that unnamable other to relax just a little bit.

If you follow any one of these passageways down, unfathomably deep, eventually it will lead to a great cavernous cistern. As you work your way out the very end of what you might still perceive of as “your” mine, you’ll find a dark cool cave containing a vast, horizon-less ocean that flickers with the reflection of some invisible sun. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

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Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

–by Scott Pinkmountain

Practice

Part 2: The Mine

Each of us is a mine. The physical body is the entrance, the mineshaft, the part which the rest of the world sees: the face, voice, actions. The mine itself is our internal identity: the mind, the consciousness, the memory, the soul, whatever you want to call it. The first chamber in the mine is the part of us that’s most accessible to the world. Our surface characteristics are on display here, the ideas, opinions and personal stories we talk about, share on a daily basis. They’ve been polished presentable. The chamber’s well lit. It might even have extra chairs for visitors, a high ceiling. Then maybe there are a couple little side chambers. We might let a few select people in to see them, friends and family, lovers. Maybe they glow in a warm candlelight that casts intriguing shadows. There are some out there that never even enter these chambers of their own, and others for whom the chambers are quite publicly exposed.

As you move further into the mine, you encounter murkier regions of the subconscious. You enter the world of psychology and private memory here: personal thoughts, imagination, un-shared experiences. Now you’ve got your miner hat on with a light attached to the front. You’re in your work-suit because it’ll likely get messy. This part of the mine has been excavated, maybe there are supports, maybe even some buzzing electric bulbs strung up, but it’s hot, uncomfortable. Maybe you’ve got a map, or a guide rope tethered around your waist with someone, say an intimate, a parent or a therapist, up at the top of the mine pointing a flashlight around, talking you through your excavation. You’re digging into muddy walls and finding large chunks of semi-recognizable ore – treasure that you can carry up to the surface and examine in the light of day without much difficulty. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

Posted on by

Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.  

–by Scott Pinkmountain  

Practice

Part 1: Do

 

The most important thing is that you do. Everything will evolve from the doing. When you start, maybe there’s one question. It doesn’t have to be too big – an “Is there a god?” type thing. In fact, it’s better if it’s not too big, though of course it needs to be big enough. Open. Flexible. Most of all, genuine. You have to not know the answer, or sincerely believe you don’t. If you have one good question, it will generate others, but only if you do.

It’s also important that you not worry about doing well. Quality will suffer from overt desire. What will enable quality is the parallel development of two functional identity states. One is the generator, the maker, the improviser. The other is the critic, the editor, the composer. In order to achieve quality, they must be kept distinct. Their separation is what makes this path so difficult. But without the separation in place, you’ll either become paralyzed as a perfectionist, unable to release into the world, or you won’t be able to see anything through to the end because you’ll become over-enamored with the generative process. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

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Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

 

–by Scott Pinkmountain

 

Production Fatigue Part III

Embracing Non-Commercial Values

 

In the last couple of columns I’ve bemoaned the intensifying slickiness of our collective cultural landscape. To my eyes and ears, the heightened production values that filter from commercial advertising and entertainment through to independent arts are reducing the handmade element of the work and our capacity for authentic expression and thus meaningful communication. I’m aware that “authentic” is a contentious word. I use it here simply to reference work made with things other than commercial competition or social gain as its primary motivations.

It is impossible to separate out my ideological stance from my personal taste, as is usually the case. Store-bought electronics lazily dialed to factory-programmed, “out of the box” settings and beats are a direct performance of unexamined, passive consumerism. Replication of short attention span, info-snack, click-baiting in literature or visual art further perpetuates our collectively compromised intellectual processes. Re-enactment of high-gloss, surface-centric celebrity idolation among subculturally-identified individuals, even in ironic form, embodies the values of objectifying patriarchy. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

Posted on by

Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

-by Scott Pinkmountain

Production Fatigue Part II: Risk and Relevance Vs. Auto-Tuning

 

A couple months ago I got to see the Pixies play for my first time. It was an outdoor show for a few hundred people – a relatively intimate concert for them. The set was a mix of old and new songs, all of which they played tightly. The sound at the venue was clear and balanced, the crowd was amped and singing along with the older tunes. There was even the occasional intimation of slam-dancing. I should have loved this show.

And yet, it kind of left me flat. It was so solid, so well-executed, so seamless, even the distorted feedback solos sounded clean and under control. The band was using expensive in-ear monitors, there were guitar techs and everyone was playing pricey gear. No one onstage moved more than a foot or two out of their designated spot. There was little-to-no banter or visible communication between band members. It felt safe. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

Posted on by

 

Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

 

~by Scott Pinkmountain

 

Production Fatigue (Part 1)

 

Last year I got to do a story for This American Life. I’ve been pitching them stories since back in 1999 when I was dating someone who worked on the show. It only took fourteen years and about fifty rejected pitches for my close nepotistic ties to pay off.

Having had some proximity to the staff, I knew they worked long hours, but nothing could have prepared me for the process of creating a single twenty-minute segment of that show. The reporting was beyond comprehensive, conducting hours of interviews with subjects for what would ultimately be a minute or two of quoted material (if any), tracking down every possible lead, multiple follow-up interviews. But it was the editing and producing of the material that I found the most remarkable. After the many hours of interviews were transcribed and painstakingly picked over, after a draft of the script was hammered out, I spent approximately 30 hours on the phone with my producer, Jonathan Menjivar, and Ira Glass combing over every word of the story, debating, tweaking, scratching out, rewriting, honing and polishing it. Then I spent another three hours in the studio tracking my fifteen minutes of voiceover under Menjivar’s direction. Then he spent god only knows how long, cutting, editing, assembling and scoring the story, turning it into broadcast-ready finished product.

The making of that story involved so much effort from so many people – my producer, Ira Glass, the other producers on the show listening to cuts and giving feedback, the fact checker, the admin assistant who set up studio time and travel arrangements, etc… – that, while I was happy with it, I didn’t feel much propriety over the end result. It was a massive team effort. Being involved in the making of something so elaborate, with so much labor from so many people forced me into a new perspective on the world. I wandered around in a kind of production dazzle for a few weeks. Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing but the extreme efforts of Production. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

Posted on by

Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

~by Scott Pinkmountain

 

Raft Building

 027-2

I built a raft. I think it’s sturdy, I think it will hold, hell I even think it looks pretty good, but my opinion doesn’t count for much. I spent a huge amount of time working on it – designing it, sketching out plans, building models and prototypes, testing individual pieces, assembling it, tearing it apart and starting over again. And this was after basically a lifetime of preparation.

I’ve been building stuff since I was young. It wasn’t always rafts. Sometimes buoys or canoes, or go-carts. I even built a small glider once. It flew almost fifty feet. But for the past few years, I’ve focused entirely on rafts. I studied archaic and contemporary designs, I consulted with expert builders, I immersed myself in the raft-building community. I even got a two-year accredited degree in Raft Craft.

And then I hunkered down and built the best raft I possibly could. It took years. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

Posted on by

Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

~by Scott Pinkmountain

On the Killing of Small, Adorable Animals

Bunny

I was driving home the other evening around dusk. I was on a narrow dirt road in the middle of the desert. A cottontail rabbit darted into the road right in front of me and ran directly under my wheel. It happened so quickly I did not have time to step on the brakes. It was instantly a road-lump in my rearview mirror.

I didn’t even slow down, let alone stop and get out. Why? What was I going to do? Give it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Put a bullet through its head? Stand there and watch the blood beading on its soft fur?

I will feel horrible about this for the rest of my life, even as the number of small, adorable animals I crush will, undoubtedly, grow. Continue reading →