A is for Anarchy Agenda

Greetings from Below. We made Nordic names to appear more white, more assimilated, more stylized like IKEA furniture tags. it was only natural this would be the next step to fame and excellence. We were tired of the powerlessness of creating, then critiquing culture. Artists might as well be artisans or court jesters, or even better, digital prophets and trend forecasters. We needed a change of life Style, and this would be activated by an inaugural Scandinavian name change. Race and ethnicity are social construct anyway. It's the thought that counts. Even society is a social construct!

Intellectuals call what we have "social capital", but we know, at best, it's just a fine balance of showmanship and passion. Realizing we were failures at climbing the social ladder, we stayed up late reading guides on how to become dismissive and charming, high functioning sociopaths. We gave each other papercuts, stole from stores, lied and cheated to our loved ones and talked shit about our enemies. We knew whatever we were doing was going to be a drop in the ocean. Phrased the right way, anything can be easily painted as a disaster. And there's tons of money to be made from disaster. This was is just one of a million emergencies–the quest for productive mediocrity. We are Russian metro dogs on the run, sniffing our way through the city, while taller humans look on with disgust and amusement. Disgruntled and powerless young folk turn into old men yelling at clouds.

W is for Why

A creative career is a minefield of moving targets. Rarely we do things for a good reason, but many are the times when we exercise obedience at the altar of conventions. Starry-eyed under a bleak, mute Nordic sky, waiting for rain when the forecast has been dead set on a permanent dry season for you and your peers. But another sun rises and we go to work or try to find it, and we stick to the ideals picked up from MIT books when we were 19. No matter how hard it is to stay awake, cut dairy, pay rent and buy local, creativity always presents itself as a career, a hobby, an unwritten novel. Perhaps a casual Sunday afternoon in the woodshop instead of low budget flights to self-funded art fair booths where no one comes to buy your product. There are no missed chances, there are only more new opportunities. It's Creativity: you're living it!

Sometimes I drink wine on my credit card and ask myself if art or expression is meaningful anymore. Are there unique emotions? Are there authentic experiences that don't require reflection? Am I too easily amused? Am I easily offended? Why be angry? Why suffer out loud? Is anything worth announcing? Why live publicly? Will opting out help? Why quit Facebook when the thrill of friendship and belonging will ultimately rope me back?

Epilogue

Everything you've been cultured to believe is incongruous with surviving capitalism. "Either way, it's all an illusion and I don't care", you tell yourself. But the nagging sensation of self-doubt grows year by year... discontents with underpayment, debt, professional jealousy and an all-consuming lack of direction fuel the growing stormcloud of unwritten social knowledge: Of who's represented by who, who pissed of who, sold what to who, met with who and slept with whom, went to which foundation, had lunch with who and collaborated with who, and where they got the money from... as the world continues to turn.

It's not new news. The art world is a conspiracy to turn the left's creative energy into financial investment for 1%. Every aspect and experience of your cultural life becomes usurped and destroyed by private interest. Chatting leads to ad revenue. Phone games breed addiction. Gossip becomes word of mouth. Purchases become data metrics. Cigarette bumming leads to specialty vaporizers. Living cheap leads to gentrification. Everything is so profoundly transactional.

You deserve worse,
and you are literally worth less.

But consider this: give fewer fucks about stuff that people with high power jobs in institutions impose on you.

Don't look at paintings, look at your money. You, dear creative, make spending time matter, and it's your feet that can get you out of a hopeless artist talk.