How to Stop Making Bad Art

Several months ago I had a discussion with several friends about modern art. It all started because of two articles in vice.com,

• I'm Sick Of Pretending: I Don't "Get" Art
• Alright, I'll Do it - I'll Give Art a Second Chance

The articles have several photos from recent exhibits showing ridiculous examples of what is being called art. For example: a neon sign that reads "My Cunt Is Wet With Fear", wooden shelves of porcelon dogs and cats, a photograph of the artist rubbing money against her vagina.

I understand what the author is trying to say but contemporary modern art is kind of an easy target.  The guy should challenge himself: write a story mocking juggalos, or arguing that corgis are cute.

 

I know very little about how art criticism works in any academic sense. I spent most of my time in art class during college flirting with a very cute (and talented) red-head named Lara. But I have also spent the past 15 years creating music in the hopes of getting noticed. So my thoughts aren't completely uninformed but I'm still shooting from the hip.  

 

Let's pretend there are 3 criteria that we use when looking at any given art piece.

• is it interesting?
• is it well-crafted?
• is it challenging?

All of those are subjective but seem to sum up the initial interaction between the art and the viewer. So perhaps the quality of the art depends on how those criteria interact. And artists who want to be noticed can manipulate their art to accentuate one criteria at the expense of another. For example if your art is interesting and challenging then perhaps it can be less well crafted. Is your art difficult enough to be challenging but not too difficult?

I would further assert that all of these criteria rely on different skills. By the time you get to undergrad art most professors may assume that you've at least started working on the craft component. One difficulty with modern art is that it's difficult to judge the quality of the craft - "are those really well crafted neon signs?"

I think a lot of times younger artists want to put the interesting/challenging criteria ahead of the craft criteria. At eighteen it's easy think you are so interesting and challenging that you don't have to deal with the boring mechanical parts of learning how to paint/draw/sculpt. And of course there are always the outliers who are interesting and challenging enough to do this.

There is also a 4th criteria that I like to call Magic. It's difficult to explain; maybe it's two-parts "right place at right time" and one-part "you know a guy". I've seen it before with local bands who unexplicably blow up. They're not awful but they're not amazing so it's got to be something else. I also kind of equate it with the LUCK skill you find in certain video games. We don't really know how it works but its still seems to have an impact.

There are no hard and fast rules for being successful. But it's safe to say most of the art from those articles doesn't meet any of the criteria above. Sometimes the art doesn't meet any of the criteria and still sells for millions - MAGIC! Sometimes the art meets all of them fairly well and still goes unnoticed - MAGIC!

Video Games and Aesthetics(A response to Magical Wasteland)

I would like games to be seen as art if someone can clearly place them within an understood artistic tradition. It hasn't really happened yet.

Video games are a young medium and if the community wants to push to re-define art as it is currently understood they need to have clear understanding of art as it is currently understood.

Wikipedia isn't a lot of help here in finding the two-sentence blurb on art definition. To be sure, there is plenty of subjectivity to be found when discussing art but there is also much to draw upon in terms of artistic tradition and history.

The recent N+1 article Cave Painting was an attempt to discuss that context. It touched on general aesthetic understandings as articulated by Kant and refuted by Nietzsche. Its conclusion in brief was that to the extent that they are both currently understood, games are not art.

Author and journalist, Tom Bissell submitted a thoughtful reply which disagreed with the article and suggested comparing game interactivity to theater.

Matthew S. Burns from Magical Wasteland also replied on his website and questioned N+1's understanding of gaming, art and aesthetics.

I am not a game designer or student of Kant; however; I feel that many of N+1's points were misunderstood.

Much of Kant's discussion of beauty centers on the context within which it is found. Therefore the suggestion of beauty qua beauty is problematic because its meaning is not objective. This is what N+1 means when they say "Art-beauty is not the same as being good-looking, or else Bond movies might be the most beautiful films ever made." Context is paramount or meaning is lost.

And while we're fairly certain Kant never thought about video games this does not mean his concepts are invalid. As you'll note from the link below Kant spoke generally enough to remain relevant.

All that said, any headway in this discussion will be helped by writers and thinkers who are able to have meaningful discussions in both art and gaming contexts (even if the intent is to re-imagine that context). Nietzsche understood Kant's arguments clearly so he could adequately refute them.

Unfortunately discussions on games as art rarely touch on any sort of nuanced understanding of artistic tradition or criticism. Most immediately understand art's problematic subjectivity to mean that nothing has (or can) be said on the matter, thus games must be art. N+1 acknowledges this when it asks "If video games have turned out to be art, then what has art turned out to be?"

At least with Tom Bissell there's the idea (the hope?) that his training as a journalist has conditioned him to try to see all sides of the argument as he frames the narrative.

Here's a great primer on Kant's ideas of beauty. http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantaest/#SH2a

Video Games: Art as More than Artifacts

It's great to see someone discussing the art of games without pointing to the artifacts themselves.

"And so our studio was born as an artistic laboratory. We decided to set a few experiments — test some ideas, confirm some assumptions and find the artistic tools, unique for the computer game form. Not ones borrowed from the filmmaking industry, painting or literature — but ones based on the uniqueness of playing a game, specific to the form from the very beginning. Ones based on the player’s freedom of choice, irreversibility, non-linearity and pseudo non-linearity of the process in real time… "

This is Ice-Pick Lodge's CEO Nikolay Dybowskiy interviewed over a year ago for Rock Paper Shotgun. He was discussing his studio's games Pathologic and The Void.*

This is the nuance that is missed when you try the brute-force argument that 100 graphic artists working on your game means it must be art.

*You can pick up The Void for $5 on steam. Do it now.

Video Games are Too Expensive to Be Art

I've got a few more articles I'd like to write on the subject of video games and art so I'm treating this one as an intro of sorts. I'm also expecting that I'll edit this for clarity and mistakes as I read/re-read it.

At the risk of exposing to the world just how geeky I am, I try to keep most of my video game chit chat to generalities. That means that my musician, mommy-blogger and otherwise professional blog friends can avoid zoning out while I discuss the finer points of my latest game obsession.

A while back Roger Ebert got a lot of video gamers upset when he asserted that video games weren't art. He quickly clarified that they couldn't be high art as he understood it; comparing them instead to sports. I really like video games but have to admit he makes a pretty compelling argument:Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices.

I cannot agree with Ebert that there is no potential for games to be art. But most video gamers don't really have a stake in what is or is not art; they're looking for some sort of justification for their chosen leisure activity.

Gamers who are angry with Roger Ebert don't care about art - they just want their wives/girlfriends off their case for being up till 2AM playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Of course, if you're an artists of some sort and you're doing that I'd love to hear you prove me wrong, but other than that - no sympathy!

I believe that games could be art but most lack the sort of intentionality that shapes most art. Art may be able to exist without intentionality but it requires an artist of some sort to shape it that intentionality. So by this definition, the assets in found art may have existed prior to the artist but it is not until they are declared art that they become art.

I started thinking about all of this a while ago when Jon Clark posted the following thoughts about his recent staycation:

So I was able to make about 3 months worth of headway into these games in 5 days. If (big if) I got halfway through all 6, that means that I need to be playing only these games over the next 3 months to 'finish' them. Thats pretty staggering in my opinion. I mean how is a person with a job expected to get through these games? The games industry acts like we need to be playing a new release every 2 weeks, I mean how do people do it? Even if I had no job, It would still take tons of time to keep pace with the exhausting release schedule of only the games I actually want to play..

The game industry is not intentionally making art. When they have to sell a million units they can't afford to be art. They are making the best game they can hoping to sell to as many 12-34 year old males as possible, as often as possible.

Studios force directors to edit their movies to make them shorter. Pop radio will only play songs that are less than 4 minutes long. Game companies add value by making their games longer. All of these decisions are more or less based on what the companies know people want. If you read just a handful of video game reviews you will find complaints if there is less than 10 hours of game to play.

This sounds unreasonable to folks who don't play video games but it makes sense. A new video game made by major publisher for mainstream consoles cost $40-$60; no matter how artistic it is gamers want a decent return on their investment. Which is a strong indicator that most gamers aren't interested in their game being art.

The price-point for experiencing art has to be less than $15. There are clear exceptions to this but if experiencing your art costs any more than this then you are probably not making art, you are running a business. Sure, artists have to make a living but I thought that was where the starving part of being an artists comes into play.

That said, art house theaters and galleries rarely charge more than that for tickets. Rock bands like Pearl Jam and Fugazi have worked for years to provide low-cost ways for people to see their performances.

Forget big budgets and trying to find the next Citizen Kane. We need to be on the lookout for the small studios and DIY ethics.

There might be a way games could be art but like any medium the easiest way to do this is move out of the mainstream and into the fringes.

Starting points?
Jay Pavlina - the creator of Super Mario Crossover
Jason Rohrer - the creator of Passage

Getting the Music Out of Your System

Farstar and Paco
Originally uploaded by shiitake

In 2003, Paco Estrada's old band South FM let us open for them at the late great Gypsy Tea Room. It was the CD release party for our first record "Broken Down and Wandering". They were super supportive of us and we had a great time.

South FM dissolved a few years ago but we were excited to hear/play with Paco's new project. It was also nice to chat with him about making music when most signs indicate you should probably quit:

• bandmates quit
• the local scene dries up i.e. people stop showing up at your shows
  
• every conversation about your band starts with "wow, I thought you guys broke up"
• label drops you
• wife asks you how much longer you're going to do this
  

I think we both agreed that at the end of the day it's all about making the music the keeps you up at night. Paco ignored the signs and put together a new group. It sounds great.

Keep it up Paco!

---

I met Russell Fincher for lunch last week. Russell was the singer for one of my favorite local bands, Robot Brown.

There is not much professional courtesy involved in schlepping gear onstage, but we've always tried to be cool to other bands. It was very easy to be cool to Robot Brown because they made such great music. They broke up several years ago but I still keep their EP on my mp3 player - it's so good. You can and should buy it now.

Every time we get together I bug Russell to come up to the house to record new music but I have a feeling that he's moved on. He's busy running his own company, making video game art and exploring other avenues of creativity.

That's not to say he won't write more music; I'm sure he's still got the talent. The music doesn't keep him up anymore, vying for his attention and keeping him from doing other things. Thankfully he's got other creative passions.

I'm going to keep on bugging him about it, but I told him that as soon as I get all this music out of my system I'll have to start making video games. Until then, I've still got some more songs to write.

---

A great song about my two favorite hobbies:

Not Alone But Lonely?

We were all slightly buzzed and it was after midnight which meant that some of the usual barriers between honesty were down.

My band had just played a show at the seedy dive de jour and we were all having a sobering, late dinner at the nearby Denny's. Nothing like greasy food and burnt coffee to get those brain cells back to 100% - or at least reminding them how to drive home!

So I decided to ask the question that I'd had swimming inside for a few weeks - "Are you guys lonely?"

The responses were not only unanimously in the affirmative but also very emphatic: "Oh God Yes!" mingled with much nodding of heads almost in unison. The interesting thing about it was that everyone at the table was married or in a serious relationship and yet they were well aware of just how lonely they still felt. I was so happy to know that I was not the only one who felt like this.

I certainly feel less lonely when I'm with my wife, but i have no illusions about the fact that i feel sad and lonely a lot of the time.

I should clarify that I am not and have never been depressed in the clinical sense. I've thankfully never been debilitated enough so that I could not function in the day to day. Mostly my sadness manifests itself in my having a darker sense of humor and songwriting. And I think I've come to grips with this sadness - i feel ok about it. Most of the people i know who have suffered with depression get in this cycle of feeling depressed and then slipping further into depression because they get depressed that they're depressed. I can recognize being sad as a normal part of my weekly living and thankfully i can then move onto something more enjoyable.

I think that my dear friends might be in the same place. None of them have dealt with depression (of which I'm aware at least).

A while back I indicated I might repost some older writing; this was originally posted in October of 2005 and elicited a great reply from my friend Jon

My Top Ten EVERYTHING for the 2000s

Sorry I'm late to the top-ten list party! My interests vary so much I decided to make an everything list. Hopefully it will be interesting to more than just my video game and music snob friends. I might make video game or music list at some point though as they're pretty fun also.

My list is not just things I enjoy but the things that shaped my decade: the people, events and media. Most of them are doorways into some sort of room about which I'd forgotten or overlooked. These are the things I remember. The things I need to remember.

1 - Getting married (2000)
November of 2000 marked the beginning of Lara and my journey together. It's been one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. I know some cool couples but I count myself as one of the most fortunate men I know.

2 - Farstar (2002-now)
My enduring music project. Burning through several bass players, a couple guitarist and half a dozen drummers we managed to independently released 3 projects. Another one is in the works and I've got more songs in me.

3 - Turning 30 (2006)
I have to say, I had the most kickass 30th birthday party of anyone I know. Dinner was great and we invaded a local Asian karaoke bar taking over their largest room for at least 4 hours. I'm also going to have to lay the claim as one of the first of any of my friends to have an event at Family karaoke. Others have followed suit but we brought it first!

4 - Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 (2002)
This was the video game that got me back into video games. Farstar was recording at the Echo Lab for 7 days and we played this game non-stop. When Lara visited us one day she got sucked in and we bought a Playstation 2 the next week. Thankfully we've both had varying levels of interest ever since then.

5 - The Mountain Goats (2006)
In 2006, "No Children" and "Against Pollution" were my favorite songs from what would become my favorite band. Hope and resignation have always been big parts of who I am; this music exudes it in a way that is magnetic. It's not happy music but happiness is generally overrated.

6 - "Alias" (2005)
This television series was Lara and my re-entrance into popular TV culture. It opened the door to our watching Buffy, Angel and a whole slew of other shows we had missed. We borrowed the first season on a lark and ended up watching all 22 episodes in one weekend. Marathon TV viewing for the win! From here we realized we didn't actually need cable or a DVR to watch shows that looked interesting. Neither of us could sleep after the Alias season 2 finale so we both woke up early and called every Blockbuster in a 25 mile radius to find the first disc of season 3.

7 - "Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland (2001)
People talk about Generation X and Life After God as being great but this was the first Coupland novel that really captured me. It was the first community in a Coupland novel I wanted desperately to be a part of. Every career decision I've made since then has to some degree reflected this desire!

8 - Driving up and down the California Coastal highway.
Roadtrips are long on romance but ultimately they're an endurance exercise: 80% boring, 15% less boring, 4% we're almost there, 1% beef jerky! Unless you're on California's Coastal highway 1. I drove up the coast with Todd Graves and Lara in the early 2000s and then again on Lara and my anniversary a few years ago. There is something interesting and beautiful around almost every bend.

9 - Running (2002)
I played sports in high school but it wasn't until Todd Graves asked me to join him on the last half of the Houston Marathon that I learned to run. I ran track in high school and still the idea of "learning how to run" seems strange. The 'left foot, then right foot' part comes naturally; the challenge is doing it for any extended period of time. Jeff Galloway's Book on Running was extremely helpful. We've all heard of the high that comes after extended running. There are plenty of books which also discuss the zen to be found in running. Some of those are pretty weird but plenty of them make for good reads. For me running has taught me that it's ok for me to fail. Your leg hurts for some reason; you're normally able to run ten miles but today you can barely do two; something feels very off. You learn that those days happen and all you can do is get out there and do it some more.

10 - Jenny Craig (2007)
It's humbling to mention this but that's probably OK. I was skinny all through high school and college in 2007 the crazy work hours and poor eating finally caught up to me. I was 5'9" and weighed 204 lbs; I decided I wanted to change. Thankfully my friend J. Bearce recommended Jenny Craig and as non-masculine as it was I made an appointment. Within a year I was down 40lbs and since then I've been able to keep it off with regular exercise and portion control but it's not super easy. I would recommend Jenny Craig to anyone who was wanting to lose some weight in a realistic, healthy and sympathetic environment. NOTE: When I did it, there was a $300 signup fee and you'll spend $300-400 per month on their food. They're flexible with how much food you'll need so it is probably worth calling them if you are at all curious.

Can You Only Do One Thing?

The best part about my latest gig has to be lunch.

Most of the guys I work with studied engineering together at LeTourneau so they started the daily lunch ritual before I arrived. Since my neighbor Mark introduced me the group (and helped me got the job) I've enjoyed the daily conference room banter from day one.

One of my lunch mates is Frew Schmidt. He's an incredibly talented Perl hacker and all around Very Cool Dude. He's also a fun writer - if you are a coder and/or know how to read you should check out his blog. Anyway, hanging out with Frew is always fun and today after lunch we ran a quick errand and I discovered something very cool.

We're apparently on flip sides of the same coin:
I am a musician and aspiring coder. Frew is a coder and aspiring musician.

I love technology and coding culture but have had a very hard time figuring out if it's possible to actually learn to code. And Frew loves music and the music scene but has had a hard time figuring out if he could actually play music.

Both of us have spent at least 10 years each honing our craft. And interestingly enough the advice we give each other for breaking into our aspired fields is similar - emulate good coders/musicians, use simple tools, learn correctly, invest the time, etc.

The hardest question we encountered was about possibility. It's very difficult to determine what capacity you may or may not have to do certain things. And beyond that to figure out if you will even enjoy the process and end result enough for it to be worth it.

The ultimate risk is spending 5 years trying to learn how to do something just to find out you don't really like it.

If you spend 10 years doing anything you will most likely get better at it - but when you're approaching 35 your time gets more valuable. The end result has to be satisfying enough for it to be worth enduring the process.

Clearly we didn't figure anything out but it was great to find someone that has had a similar experience.

My Dreams Costs Me $500 - 4 Times a Year

Mike just stopped by my work to pick up the final artwork for the EP. The Farstar released Strange Kids two weeks ago online but since some folks only buy CDs we've got to actually make some! CDs are good for selling at a few shows but the problem is that putting the packaging together is a hassle and you RARELY make your money back.

It is ridiculous to me that we live in the digital age but are still having to spend $1000 to actually manufacture CDs. We have another full-length album already recorded that just needs a final mix - it would be great to use that $1000 to finish and release that CD but instead we'll have to wait.

Sure, this is all part of doing what I love. But it's not exactly what you expect when you're fifteen, listening to Guns N Roses and decide to form a band.

It's weird, but not surprising when you realize your dreams and goals actually have dollar amounts associated with them. At some point it seemed like I was fed the line that our dreams transcend this - maybe this would be true if I believed in God more or lived in some sort of feel-good movie. Either way in the real world (the only world I seem to inhabit) my dreams are attached to a monetary reality. How unromantic!

When you're completely self-funded (and not rich) it takes smart planning to actually be a band long-term. You always kind of hope a record label will rescue you from your day job but that's probably more legend than reality. And the record labels we've spoken with (it's a very short list, trust me) assume you like the prospect of living away from your family in a van. Only romantic when you're 19. Maybe.

Last night, Zech mentioned that his younger brother would only play music if he breaks even financially doing it. We both chuckled at this! Oh to be 19 again! Zech's brother is a talented young drummer but this doesn't surprise me. I've actually heard several drummers adopt this policy.

And really, It makes sense when you're young or a studio musician who has no long-term creative stake in the music. When you are neither of these you soon realize that it is just about impossible to make a living income from your band.

Here are a few ways you can make music as a band:

• tour a lot
• play cover music events (Wedding Singer!)
• become super famous.
• license your music to TV/Movies/Video games

Each of those comes with it's own set of specific challenges. Such as "how do you book a tour?", "how do I get my song featured on a reality show?", "how can I become super famous?" From what I've seen a lot of this stuff boils down to luck and knowing the right people.

On the flip side it's incredibly easy to lose money all the time making music.

Here's a few of the simple and easy ways you lose money in a band:

• have a rehearsal space ($300-500/month)
• instrument repair/upkeep/replacement ($50/month)
• gas ($15/month)
• record an album locally in a decent studio $5000-10000
• spend time away from kids/family/school ($???)

Unless you pack out every club you play and sell a lot of CDs, T-shirts or MP3s it's actually really hard to break even - let alone come out in the positive.

This cost is probably why you don't see a lot of 30-45 year olds (non-famous) folks still creating/releasing music. It still happens - but when you exclude cover bands and old metal guys trying to score - the number dwindles.

So you have to love doing music. That nothing new! It's fairly well established among people who create: Love your craft - don't expect to get rich!

But for your own sanity and financial security you really have to take it a step further - for as long as you are committed to your craft - expect for it to cost you money. Budget for it in the same way you budget for your rent or car. You can be happy loving your craft but that happiness won't keep the lights on.

What do beards, autotune and photoshop effects have in common?

Beards can be such wonderful monsters. Until recently, my friend and bandmate Nathan had one that was incredible. It was huge, cumbersome and exploded in all the right directions. As you've no-doubt gathered I was jealous and now that he's shaved it off we all miss it. Raise your eyebrow if you must but Nathan's beard was creative effort. Indeed it had a life of it's own and was a reflection of who Nathan was as a creative.

The other end of the beard spectrum is the Beard As Surrogate Jawline. You know the guy - you've been the guy. Gentlemen often use a beard to give them the jawline they lost somewhere 40 lbs ago. But is anyone fooled? Don't kid yourself.

What does this have to do with anything? Let alone auto-tune and photoshop effects?

All of these are perfectly legitimate tools or manners of expression that are often used to mask flaws.

It's extremely satisfying to rant against jawline beards, abusing autotune and the overuse of the emboss and watercolor effects! There is profound pleasure in asking, in effect, "Are you wearing that make-up or is it wearing you?" It's not lost on me. But I hope it's clear that there is something larger at stake.

As someone who aspires to create amazing things you have to be honest about who you are and where you're at. Whether it's your weight - or how good you are as a photographer - or how good of a singer you are. You need to be able to look at your body (or body of work) and give fair assessments. You need to temper these assessments with grace and kindness but you've got to look long and hard.

The tools above aren't the problem. They can be used to accent your work in some really creative ways. But when you use them to mask faults you are preventing yourself from taking the step that help you be the person/artist/whatever you want to be!

Once you take that honest look then you can move on. Will it make your art better? Maybe.

Wouldn't it be awesome if being honest with yourself about your crappy song transforms it into a good song? And I would love to be the guy to tell you that good news.

Most likely it won't. So I can't be the guy. Double-suck!

Being honest means you will have to do the difficult work of improving your craft - but if your goal is to create amazing things then that is good news. If you don't like the process of getting better you're probably not doing the right thing.

Of course a lot of very successful people like living in this self delusion. And if that's you - good luck, we probably operate in very different realms. For better and worse part of living the life I want to live is being honest. I love creating amazing things and being honest with myself affords me the freedom to succeed (or fail) at that.