The crisis in consumerism
I was jogging nowhere on a treadmill whilst staring into a televison screen, nervously swapping between channels, in desperate search for something that would turn my attention away from the other sweaty emotionless people in the gym so I could avoid that eary feeling of meaninglessness. I was thinking “one step at a time” for a whole hour already, but my new trainers were pressing hard on my poor little toes. Suddenly a documentary popped up on the screen: Shop ’til you drop – the crisis of consumerism. Oh, I love the irony! Here I am joging on a plastic/rubber thing inside an air-conditioned prison, when I should have been out in nature breathing fresh air. Then and there I decided to let my feet walk nowhere a little longer just to get some valuable food for thought. Here’s the trailer:
“Is the Western world too materialistic? Are we willfully trashing the planetary ecology in order to serve the desires and drives of the ego? And what, or who could be driving this powerful force of seduction? “Shop ‘Til You Drop” takes a critical look at social injustice, peak oil, resource depletion and our deep need to feel connected to each other through what we choose to consume. This unique documentary also examines the frenzied pace of fast-lane materialism that is beginning to burn us out. We are just now beginning to yearn for a simpler life, but is it too late? Have we set in motion a runaway train that threatens to undermine the ecological, social and spiritual cornerstones that make the pursuit of happiness possible in the first place?”
My poor feet did not do well after I stepped off the treadmill, the toenails on both my pinky toes have now turned blue. For a long time I believed I would have to amputate. But it was worth it.
PS: If you live in Norway, this documentary is available online on nrk.no only until 19-01-2011 from URL http://www.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/693996/. Should you have any suggestions as to oher places where it can be found in full on the internet, please leave a comment! Thank you.
Beginnings
“A bad beginning makes a bad ending”
- Euripides (486 BC- 406 BC), Aegus
Some weeks ago I had the idea of starting up a blog, the main purpose being honesty and openness around my artistic working process, no matter how stupid, immature or irrelevant the ideas, because I believe that a work of art is the sum of its processes and not only the end result.
When we visit a gallery, what we often see is an artistic product. It’s been developed, and thoroughly thought through (The Three Ts). In essence it is not so different from any other ordinary/extraordinary product. Many artists, including myself, don’t like to think of art as a product. We like to differentiate ourselves as sceptics by staying “true”, “idealistic” and “uncommercial” (which really means “we don’t sell ourselves cheap”).
The term “product” can give associations to pejorative terms such as “capitalism”, “marketing”, “consumerism”, “mass-consumption”, “industrialisation”, “pollution”, “third world exploitation”, “depletion of natural resources”, “global warming/climate changes”, etc, perhaps explaining why we don’t like art products. According to the guru of marketing, Phillip Kotler, a product is “anything that is offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption and that might satisfy a need. Products include more than just tangible goods. Broadly defined, products include physical objects, services, persons, places, organizations, ideas or mixes of these entities”
So when “art” ends up in a gallery, it is – let’s just call a spade for a spade – a product. It may not always be for sale, but it has a purpose. Which purpose? – Now that is up to the viewer – you – to decipher. But don’t ever forget that someone is trying to pitch you something, be it an aesthetic ideal, a political message, a theoretical conviction, a transcendental experience… The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
“People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Is that why my flesh is naked? You might say – yes you might say, nature without humanity… Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea”
— Jean-Paul Sartre. Nausea. 1964 edition, p 29
Lately I’ve been feeling nauseous. In Jean-Paul Sartres novel Nausea, the main character writes: “nothing seemed true; I felt surrounded by cardboard scenery which could quickly be removed…”
I recognize this anxiety. I’ve had it before. I have it again.
Let me offer a small personal chronology of events. In 1999 I started my studies of marketing at the Norwegian School of Management BI/Norwegian School of Marketing NMH. After four years I broke off my studies. I got the nausea: starting off as light prickles in the skin the first semester, spreading to the pit of my stomach until one day I could no longer set foot in the school building. But there was no escape. The filth was everywhere: in the streets, newspapers, television, movies, people, in my cupboard, in my refrigerator, in me: surrounded and engulfed by superficiality there is no place to breathe. I sought refuge in art but I should have foreseen that running away never solves anything, for unresolved issues always come back to haunt you. Superficiality is as valid in the art world as anywhere else.
Now, superficiality is not necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s honest. It is deceitful however claiming something is more than it really is. Marketers are exceptionally gifted in devising rhetorical methods in order to sell products. For instance: hide your flaws – “you’re worth it”, drunks give you – “absolut truth”. Artists learn a vocabulary to devise sensual rhetorics (look! Listen! Taste! Touch! Smell!), strategies on how to talk about and present their art, building their image to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. It’s all marketing to sell yet another product.
Everybody knows the dice are loaded. Illusions lose its magic once the tricks are revealed. Artists hide their process to create mystery around their artworks. We all need an occasional escape to Neverland. It’s entertainment – fine! But be skeptic of anyone claiming aboslute truth, no matter the packaging.
I was planning on publishing a manifesto, a sort of purpose statement, as the number one post for this blog. It’s not finished yet. I’ve been hatching little devious strategies on how to word my manifest as efficiently as possible. But I realised the manifest might just as well be the end product, to convince you of my artistic viewpoints. That is why I’ll just end this thread, or rather begin, by quoting the science fiction novelist Frank Herbert
“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand”
This blog comes with an artistic intent. This is my disclaimer.
Sources:
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Cohen, Leonard. 1988. “Everybody Knows” from the album I’m Your Man. Columbia Records.
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Herbert, Frank. Quoted in Quotationspage.com. Available from URL: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26173.html [Downloaded 2011-01-06]
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Kotler, Phillip, Gary Armstrong, John Saunders and Veronica Wong. 1999. Principles of Marketing, Second European edition. New Yersey: Prentice Hall.
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Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. 1964 edition. Quoted in Wikipedia.org. Nausea (novel). 2011. Available from URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausea_(novel) [Downloaded 2011-01-06]
