Art and Freedom in the Age of Autocracy

Any objective observer of the situation in the United States can see that President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, the ‘New Right’, and various oligarchs have steered the country towards autocracy. The only question will be how far down the road of dictatorial rule does the country actually get. Like it or not, the world’s lone superpower taking an autocratic turn affects all of us. Whether you are in Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Asia, or the Middle East; the aftershocks from America’s tremors will be felt.

In a general sense, this means we are entering a time of lessening freedom, and increasing threats against it. As autocracy increases, freedom must retreat; and vice versa - the two things cannot coexist. For artists, this dynamic goes straight to the heart of their very being. Making art doesn’t necessarily require freedom per say. But the act of making art is an act of freedom in itself.

In historian Tim Snyder’s recent book On Freedom he describes five components that make up what he describes as ‘positive freedom’: sovereignty, unpredictability, mobility, factuality, and solidarity. Sovereignty refers to an individual's capacity to understand the world sufficiently to the point they can make informed judgments and take action. Unpredictability refers to the capacity for individuals to act creatively, and in ways that are not predetermined.

Mobility describes the capacity for individuals to move through the world according to their desires; as well as social mobility. Factuality refers to knowing the truth about the world, which then enables individuals to change it. And solidarity refers to the recognition of the interconnectedness of all individuals, and how freedom is collective and interdependent.

All acts of art-making embody some of these qualities. While works of art that directly seek to challenge autocratic beliefs embody most, if not all of them. These types of works also convey authentic feeling and meaning. That is to say they occupy the necessary space that lies in direct opposition to autocratic sentiments. A space where human dignity, and universal rights are treated with earnest belief. In the art world this is no small feat considering earnest feeling is sometimes greeted with cynicism or accusations of kitchiness.

Two artists whose work functions as a direct challenge to autocracy are Barbara Kruger and Ai Weiwei. Both Kruger and Ai have used artistic expression to highlight the importance of freedom, and interrogate those that restrict it. Kruger’s work Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) was created for the 1989 Women’s March on Washington. It was a direct message to women everywhere that their bodily freedom was being encroached upon by external forces. It was an act of freedom that sought to enable greater freedom for others. Through maximal use of factuality and solidarity, Kruger was able to create a work that became a timeless touchstone for women’s rights.

Much of Ai Weiwei’s artistic practice has been shaped by autocratic restrictions on freedom, and the opposition to it. His continued artistic expression in the face of autocratic harassment by the Chinese Communist Party government embodies freedom in itself. Creating art when an oppressive force tells you not to displays sovereignty, unpredictability, and mobility. Ai would then use factuality and solidarity to create works like Trace, or films like So Sorry. Created while  Ai was under house arrest, Trace was a direct rebuke to autocratic abuse. Ai created dozens of earnest portraits out of legos of other political prisoners from around the world. For Ai, it was a tribute to the ‘heroes of our time’. Again, this mode of art making that directly takes aim at autocracy must be wrapped in authentic feeling and meaning.

For his film So Sorry, Ai sought to document his attempt to identify the names of students killed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Thousands of children died due to poor building construction and laxed inspections. Both of which were a direct result of the corruption embedded within the autocratic Chinese government. Ai’s film displayed factuality (the desire to show the truth about the earthquake) and solidarity (the desire to convey the human dignity of those that died). It is no mistake that Ai’s actions led to him being assaulted by Chinese state police. Autocratic regimes recognize that the greatest threats to their rule come from those who engage in the elements of true freedom.

While both Ai and Kruger have made works that embody the best of positive freedom, their success has also allowed them to reap the benefits from an economic system that could be best described as unfettered capitalism. Unfettered capitalism, otherwise known as late stage capitalism, describes the economic situation we find ourselves in today. A time where excessive money making by corporations, economic inequality, spiraling cost of living, and unchecked consumerism have taken hold.

To the best of my knowledge, neither Ai or Kruger have used their work for purely financial gain, or catered their production towards capitalistic ends. However, the same cannot be said for much of the art world in terms of avoiding complete capitulation to the excesses of unfettered capitalism. The question then becomes, in a time of rising autocracy; does art that aligns itself with excessive profiteering become an unwitting accessory to freedom's autocratic demise?

Unfettered capitalism might not be the binary opposite of freedom, but it definitely stands in opposition. In relation to the five components of freedom mentioned earlier, it restricts all of them for many. It curtails the sovereignty of individuals by keeping quality child care, healthcare, or decent education out of reach. It stifles unpredictability by trapping individuals in meaningless work; or allowing social media companies to render them predictable through seductive digital algorithms.

Within unfettered capitalism, mobility (whether social or physical) is eroded by economic inequality and limited resources. While factuality gives way to conspiracy, falsehoods, and shortened attention spans as big tech companies make billions off of manipulating the human mind. Finally, and probably most importantly, solidarity ceases to exist as unfettered capitalism stirs greed and egoism. Both of which cause individuals to think primarily of themselves, and ignore the humanity of those around them. This is probably the most pernicious effect of excessive capitalism. For a system that spurs human beings to be ruled by their base impulses is a system that doesn’t enable freedom, but servitude.

It’s hard to deny, given all this, that art commodified or produced according to the norms of unfettered capitalism engages with a system that runs parallel to autocracy. Therefore, art that is intended to oppose injustice, oppression, or authoritarianism cannot be given away to the whims of economic excess. Art that is intended to elevate human dignity cannot be turned into a commodity without turning the subject of the art into a commodity as well. When a work of art becomes a commodity it becomes no different than a treasury bond or a corporate stock item. And when the metaphysical waters around a work of art begin to resemble those that govern Wall Street, one cannot honestly say that it maintains any kind of purchase on conveying true freedom.

In an age of increasing autocracy, and lessening freedom, art can act as a stubborn reminder of what is right, and what is true. Since autocracy is the antithesis of freedom, any work of art that seeks to stand in opposition to autocracy must embody freedom itself. This means it must be authentic in purpose, authentic in human feeling, and oriented towards the universal. Freedom is important because it is a universal right that all human beings deserve. It is not something that some human beings deserve upon birth, while others do not. That kind of discriminatory thinking is why autocracy is evil at its essence.

In the past, as artists, we might have taken these notions for granted, hand waved them away, or even greeted them with cynicism. Yet what might not have been clear then, should be clear now. The stuff we might sometimes regard as kitschy, naïve, or overly earnest; that’s actually the stuff that matters. And in the end it will be the only stuff that can truly hold the line in the face of advancing autocracy and declining freedom.

Art and the Human Mind: An Examination

The interaction between works of art and the human mind can be hard to quantify. A film released at a certain time can spark intense feelings within a viewing audience. While a novel written generations ago can still entice a modern intellect to grow and widen. A glimpse of a transcendent painting; or the sound of timeless music can move a person to experience feelings of joy and wonder. The multitude of human creations offers the opportunity for a multitude of human responses. Despite this, I believe we can deconstruct, and distill some of the distinct ways the human mind responds to works of art. It should be noted that in speaking about the ‘human mind’, I am referring to a mind not immersed in art history, art criticism, or critical theory. Rather I am referring to a mind that is a blank slate in terms of artistic discourse. In my view, this framing represents how the vast majority of human beings encounter art during the course of their lives.

There are four main constructs relating to the interaction between art and the human mind. We will call them the utilitarian, the formal, the immediate, and the universal. Each one has its own distinct qualities. Yet the qualities of one, can inform or influence another. Each construct is a product of time, human consciousness, and the properties of the art in question. The way a work of art is perceived can be different during the time it was created versus a generation later. The metaphysical space a mind occupies, and the nature of human perception provides the lens through which a work of art is viewed. And of course the independent qualities of a work of art itself can impose themselves on our consciousness.

The utilitarian construct can be described as one where a work of art functions primarily as an object that performs a practical function. Some examples of this could include pieces of furniture, public transportation hubs like subway stations, or visual advertisements. Our minds frame each of these examples in terms of practical usage. A chair prompts us to decide whether to sit or stand. A subway stop describes our location in the world, and how to get from one place to another. And a beverage advertisement triggers us to consume - or to pass on the visual sales pitch that is presented.

One might consider the nature of the utilitarian construct negating the very idea of ‘art’ itself. It seems reasonable to conclude that a purely functional object isn’t really a work of art. Yet this notion ignores the craft that can be applied to objects that function primarily within the utilitarian construct. A piece of furniture can be beautiful, a subway station can be built with sublime grandeur, and an advertisement can be designed to be visually engrossing. This means that the utilitarian construct bleeds into, and oscillates with the formal construct. Our minds can consider and respond to the formal aspects of objects serving a practical function.

Some of the earliest known human paintings illustrate the connection between the utilitarian construct and the formal construct. Around 50,000 years ago our ancestors depicted animals on cave walls discovered in Europe and Indonesia. At the time the cave paintings were created, they probably served some kind of utilitarian purpose. Whether that was storytelling, instruction, location mapping, or ritual. Yet at the time, the formal wonder of the paintings must have captured and inspired the minds of prehistoric humans. As the millennia passed, and modern human minds began to view the paintings, the utilitarian construct faded and gave way completely to the formal construct. The modern mind can take no practical instruction from the paintings; yet it can still be moved by the formal wonder of the works.

The formal construct describes the situation where the human mind responds to a work of art overwhelmingly via the qualities of the work itself. Examples of this could include a big budget, CGI blockbuster movie that stimulates the senses, but is ultimately empty of deeper meaning. Or maybe a well written detective novel that simply looks to entertain the reader rather than teach a philosophical lesson. Under the framework of the human mind we are describing (as a blank slate when it comes to artistic discourse), abstract visual art becomes subsumed by the formal construct as well. When a mind encounters a Jackson Pollock painting today, the interaction is one where the formal aspects of the work spur the feelings the mind produces. The average viewer will not take into rational consideration the history of painting, or the psychological journey Pollock took to arrive at his most famous works.

Two interesting aspects of the formal construct are time and metaphysical foundations. As one can see with the cave paintings from prehistoric humans; the passage of time tends to remove utilitarian considerations from certain works of art. This in turn leaves the formal construct to fill the void that is left behind. Metaphysical foundations function in a similar, but distinct manner. The term ‘metaphysical foundations’ refers to the philosophical context or ideological motivations for a work of art. The sharpest examples of which would be various forms of religious art. A breathtaking painting that depicts a Christian miracle will impact a devout Christian mind in a completely different manner than it would the mind of an atheist. The Christian mind will respond within the formal, the immediate, and maybe even within the universal construct. While the atheist mind will respond primarily under the formal construct.

Art that is born out of a narrow metaphysical belief resides within the formal construct for a wide swath of human minds. For a metaphysical belief system within a human mind defines the very nature, and the structure of the reality that mind observes. In modern times, human consciousness is divided among a varying amount of metaphysical belief structures. So a work of art that is totally immersed in one, will be impenetrable to another. It’s almost like encountering someone who speaks a language different from your own. Your immediate mode of communication with them will be on a formal, and surface level. This is similar to the way a human mind responds to a work of art that is immersed in a metaphysical construct different from their own.

Art that identifies, and captures the broadest metaphysical notions of the time in which it is created, interacts with the human mind under the immediate construct. Within this construct, a viewer encounters a work of art; and instead of being prompted by utility, or formal beauty, they begin to feel something deeper. It’s almost like the mind of the viewer begins to look at itself in a way. It begins to correlate what it’s seeing, with the feelings and sentiments it has been experiencing during its interaction with the broader world.

One example of art that falls under the immediate construct would be the late James Rosenquist’s painting, ‘F-111’. Painted during the tumultuous 1960’s, the painting captures what it felt like to be alive at the time. One can imagine a contemporary viewer of the work having their minds activated by feelings concerning the world around them. In a similar manner, early 2000’s HBO television shows like ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘The Wire’ captured the minds of viewers. The television dramas were entertaining, but they also forced audiences to grapple with deep metaphysical questions about the time in which they were made. In the realm of literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1925) did the same thing. The celebrated novel captured the essence of the 1920’s jazz age, and deeper issues surrounding the human condition.

‘The Great Gatsby’ is also a good example of the interplay between the immediate construct, and what some might call the highest construct: the universal. ‘The Great Gatsby’ became a widely accepted piece of great literature as decades passed. Its staying power, and effect on modern readers can be attributed to its successful artistic depiction of universal human nature. Novels like George Orwell’s ‘1984’, and David Foster Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest’ also rose to exist within the universal construct due to their mastery in depicting aspects of the human condition. As time went by, the time in which these novels were written mattered less and less. Their original place within the immediate construct gave way to a place within the universal construct.

A work of art that is able to deeply move and connect with a human mind many years after its creation operates within the universal construct. The highest form of the universal construct is one where a work of art is able to affect a human mind in a similar manner to the immediate construct; but free from the constraints of time. In a way, the work becomes eternal, or even transcendent. A viewer or subject is moved to feel sentiments or thoughts that are so universal, they are hardwired into human consciousness. Great music can be especially effective at this. Artists like Bob Marley or ‘The Beatles’ created songs that maintain their effect across the span of time. While the compositions of a classical master like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, or the genius jazz creations of Miles Davis elicit universal, timeless wonder.

The abstract, yet potentially universal nature of classical music and jazz music, highlight a second form of the universal construct. One where the formal construct rises to the realm of the universal. Philosophers or neuroscientists can eternally deconstruct the notion of ‘beauty’ as it relates to human perception. But for our purposes we must simply acknowledge that there are formal aspects of art that the human mind has evolved to find pleasing or captivating.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a modern human being who didn’t find paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, or Georgia O'Keeffe visually appealing. I would be willing to bet that the visual appeal of such works will remain strong as long as there are human beings around to view them. The same could be said for Michelangelo’s sculpture ‘David’, or Pablo Picasso’s ‘Guernica’. When the formal aspects of a work of art rise to the universal construct, they are able to spur certain feelings within the mind of the viewer. Sentiments like awe, wonder, or joy emerge into the mind of the viewer as if they were dragged from the depths of their subconsciousness.

There are no value judgments to be placed on either of the four constructs that describe the interaction between art and the human mind. One should not be seen as ‘better’ than another. They are only descriptions that map the intentions of human creators, the passage of time, and the minds of human viewers. Like everything in our world, the nature of art is at the mercy of human consciousness. A human mind must perceive a work of art in order for the work to exist. This means (for better or worse) that the perception of a viewer is integral to how a work of art is defined in our reality. Works of art are not single, self fulfilling entities projecting their reality on the world. Rather they are similar to the human beings that view them - objects embedded in a dynamic, interdependent reality. One where the nature of things exist partly in the material world, and partly in conventions created by the human mind.

A Case For Art and 'The Good'

It’s hard to define why certain things stick in our memory, and why other things do not. Beyond our control, various points or moments in our lives tend to cement themselves as ever present in our mental landscape. They sit there like a book tucked away on a bookshelf. Always there to be referred to or analyzed. For me, one such moment occurred during my first end of semester critique while in graduate school at Brooklyn College in 2011. The crowd evaluating my work at the time consisted mostly of professors and other professional artists that were invited to participate. The pointed discussion centered around two paintings that I had created amid the charged atmosphere in New York City (and the country) due to Occupy Wall Street, and the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Yet amid all the comments and verbal arrows lobbed by those in attendance, there was one that always stuck with me. Towards the end of the session, a guest artist in attendance suggested that I should be ‘more cynical’. I assumed this person meant the comment in a kind of overall metaphysical way. Basically it meant that some of the things I had said or tried to depict had ‘too much’ authentic feeling behind them. In his view, I was appealing too much to what some might call ‘The Good’.

At the time, I knew the comment was off the mark. Yet I had neither the chance amid the rapid fire discussion, nor the philosophical coherence to counter it. The person who made the comment was drawing from the well of postmodern cynicism and deconstruction. While I had just begun to draw from the well of metamodern feeling, though I didn’t realize it at the time. The paintings I presented were full of cynicism for the current political and economic moment. Yet they also contained elements of humanistic feeling and dignity. The call for me to be ‘more cynical’ was basically a rejection of the dualism or oscillation that resided in the work. It was a call to negate The Good, and embrace a simplistic, yet seductive cynicism. I guess the person making the comment didn’t realize that having come of age in the 1990’s, I had been there and done that already. It’s no coincidence that my generation invented the modern iteration of the mass school shooting. For bottomed out cynicism turned towards nihilism wasn’t a philosophical journey for many in my generation; it was the reality of how we lived in the world.

I suppose if I’m going to make a case for the importance of The Good, I should probably illustrate some philosophical examples first. In the view of the ‘give me more cynicism’ guy, The Good is probably seen as a kind of kitschy, naive, modernist formulation. In fact, he’d probably argue that The Good doesn’t even really exist; and he’d probably hand-wave away any appeal to authentic feeling - especially in art.

For the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, The Good was the eternal, ‘ideal form’ that was the ultimate goal or aim of human life. The Good was the ‘sun’ that lit the way for humanity to see the truth about the world. It flowed through the virtues of individuals, all the way through to the nature and character of the state they inhabited. For Plato’s student, Aristotle, The Good was a more practical conception. Aristotle saw The Good as a kind of real world ‘happiness’, or ‘human flourishing’. This real world, ‘highest good’ for Aristotle consisted of human activity in accordance with reason and virtue. Whereas Plato saw The Good as something the human soul could reach through contemplation, Aristotle saw The Good as a practical matter that human beings might be able to achieve through cultivated activities and habits.

In Buddhist thought, The Good might be seen as an individual reaching a state of enlightenment, or contentment. A state where the individual has realized a state of detachment from their sense of self, and the spontaneous desires that enter their mind. Along with this state of enlightenment might come a sense of inner and outer compassion, that could lead to a broader good. That is to say, a group of individuals enlightened by a Buddhist sense of The Good would form a community that embodied The Good in itself. Interestingly, this idea of The Good being interlocked with the individual and their wider community, is embodied by the African philosophy, ‘Ubuntu’. For practitioners of Ubuntu, The Good is represented by the notion of ‘I am we’. The Good embodies the quality of the relationships between individuals and others. Things like compassion, cooperation, forgiveness, collective well being, and friendship could be seen as populating an Ubuntu conception of The Good.

These philosophical notions of The Good deal with the totality of human life. They address the largest questions about our short time on this planet. What is our purpose in life? How can our lives be meaningful and ‘happy’? How does The Good function in our metaphysical reality or collective existence? Clearly, the practice of philosophical inquiry goes hand in hand with discourse surrounding The Good. For unpacking and dissecting the true nature of The Good is a primary task of philosophy. In artistic mediums like literature, film, or music; The Good has always been a necessary subject. Stories or songs about human existence (fictional or not) must deal with The Good in some manner. Yet for visual art, like painting or sculpture, The Good isn’t a straightforward concept. It is neither a necessary subject of inquiry like in philosophy - nor is it an inherent narrative aspect of the creative product, like in literature, film, or music.

For visual art in the past, The Good could be seen as being tied to older notions of 'truth', or ‘beauty'. Think Michaelangelo's, 'David', or Claude Monet's 'Water Lilies' paintings. The pure formal wonder of these works could be seen as participating in an ideal Platonic form of 'beauty’. Though Plato himself saw art as a mere (and inferior) imitation of ideal forms or essences; for our purposes, the general point stands. The Good, for many centuries as it related to art, was directly connected to the formal aspects of the work. The technical mastery of the artist was the main vehicle for portraying The Good. Even as abstract art began to gain prominence in the 20th century, The Good was still reflected in the formal excellence of the work. This could be seen as viewers were moved by the ephemeral beauty of works like those from Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, or Helen Frankenthaler.

Yet as the age of postmodern deconstruction (and eventual cynicism) took hold in the 1960’s, visual art became less focused on formal dynamics, and more focused on institutional and societal critique. Artists began to engage the hypocritical morality, racial discrimination, technological advancement, existential emptiness, and emerging mass media culture of the time. It was the beginning of a metaphysical reality that was moving away from condensed, linear progression, towards increasing complexity and uncertainty. And it was the beginning of the end for the mental vice grip that the WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) ruling class held over the rest of society. The 1967 film, ‘The Graduate’ was a brilliant illustration of this. Especially in the scene where recent college graduate Dustin Hoffman gets told by a member of the WASP ‘old guard’ that he should consider an exciting future in ‘plastics’. The uninterested, detached look on Hoffman’s face served as an apt metaphor for a generation that had no use for the stale, traditional structure of the society they were entering.

Unfortunately, this justified rejection of the ruling class status quo brought with it an unintended casualty; the idea of The Good itself. For The Good became associated with things like the false, ‘patriotic’ narratives used to justify the Vietnam War. Or the oppressive, religious ideological constructs that curtailed the rights of women or the LGBT community. Even the seductive advertising, and dehumanizing greed of unfettered capitalism became identified with a nefarious form of The Good. In other words, The Good was seen as a kind of empty vessel of propaganda. Something that was used by those in power to control, and undermine the rest of society. Of course the ruling elite of the time were not exemplifying the true nature of The Good, but this mattered little. The ruling institutions that projected the false notions of The Good were still some of the few institutions in society that put forth an idea of The Good. This meant that when younger generations (including artists) sought to destroy the mirage being presented to them, they accidentally destroyed the benign idea of The Good, along with the false notions. Much of contemporary art then became not only antithetical to notions surrounding The Good, it became antithetical to the idea of The Good itself.

As the decades went by, contemporary art and society at large began to be warped by the advancement of unfettered capitalism. By the late 1980’s, the void created by the ideological deconstruction of the 1960’s had been filled by capitalism itself. The Good was now increasingly defined by what kind of job you obtained, and the material objects you accumulated. The 1987 Oliver Stone movie, ‘Wall Street’ coined a famous line that summed up the era nicely: ‘greed is good’. Business, economic profits, and ‘professionalism’ defined the contours of what it meant to live ‘the good life’. Consciously or not, contemporary art began to be taken in by the gravity of economic hedonism. Thus the art world embraced its own false form of The Good. One that ironically embodied many of the things that artists and activists had been moved to attack and deconstruct in the 1960’s.

Yet by the 1990’s it became evident that there was a significant problem with capitalism filling the well that The Good was intended to be drawn from. In philosophical language, it might be seen as a ‘category mistake’. That is to say, capitalism was an economic system intended to generate wealth. It was never meant to function as something that human beings gave their lives away to, or something that provided meaning and existential fulfillment. Capitalism was basically a tool that human beings created to allow for the greatest amount of pathways to true meaning, or The Good. But contained within itself, capitalism was utterly empty of genuine human meaning, or true manifestations of The Good. In fact, untethered, or unfettered capitalism stoked sentiments in the human mind that were the very opposite of The Good. It was no mistake that greed, hedonism, and existential cynicism reigned during the 90’s amid the rubble of past (flawed) traditions. This metaphysical equation was captured supremely by what many regard as the peak of postmodern storytelling; the HBO television show, ‘The Sopranos’ (1999-2007).

By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it had become clear that the experiment of capitalism masquerading as The Good had run its course. The financial collapse of 2008 had revealed the true nature of a capitalist economic system left to its own ends. Greed was not ‘good’ anymore; instead it was a wrecking ball that crushed the middle class on down to the poor. The justified cynicism that followed the economic downturn was reminiscent of postmodern social reactions of the past. Yet there was an added sensibility that made it different. Embodied by former US President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, there was also a kind of tempered ‘hope’ or optimism. People were angry, but they were also open to meaningful change and purpose. For younger generations especially, there was a feeling of the need to tear things down. But there was also the yearning to build something meaningful in its place. In other words, there was a desire for a new, and true conception of The Good.

This desire for a true conception of The Good is nothing new, in fact it is inherent to human nature. If the idea of The Good is replaced with the notion of ‘meaning’, then Viktor Frankl’s ‘will to meaning’ comes to mind. As human beings, we are oriented to doing things that we believe will give us meaning in life. Things like the will to power or the will to pleasure fall under the ‘meaning umbrella’, as they are pursued by individuals with the hope they will fill what Frankl described as the ‘existential vacuum’. Think about capitalism becoming a false form of The Good. The greed and hedonism that was unleashed captured the minds of individuals because they seemed like pathways to meaning and purpose. The same could be said for never ending postmodern cynicism and deconstruction. The very act of embodying the postmodern outlook became a way to create purpose and meaning in the lives of those that felt disaffected.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, it seemed like this inherent human desire for The Good had aligned with true conceptions of The Good. That is to say our inherent desire for The Good had finally realigned with things that were actually meaningful and fulfilling. False conveyors of The Good like greed or hedonism still maintained their allure. But true reservoirs of The Good like community, meaningful work, family, healthy ‘spirituality’, human dignity, love, grace, and compassion became recognizable aims. It also seemed like there was a kind of subconscious realization that The Good was a critical cornerstone of certain political and social causes. This was illustrated poetically by David Simon in HBO television shows like ‘The Wire’ (2002-2008) or ‘Treme’ (2010-2013). Simon showed how we cared about things like poverty, racial injustice, economic injustice, education inequality, or drug addiction because they created a deficit of The Good. The absence of The Good created by these societal ills was the reason we cared about fixing them.

So as I sat in that room back in 2011 at Brooklyn College during my critique; this was the water I was sitting in. As I was requested to be ‘more cynical’, I was already in a place where cynicism had run its course. I knew there probably wasn’t a ‘God’ in the sky, at least how human religion had conceived. Yet I knew that there was spiritual nature to our existence that dealt with love, grace, and things beyond our comprehension. I didn’t believe in some kind of naive ‘kumbaya’ feeling that would solve all of the problems in society. Yet I did believe that things like friendship, compassion, brotherhood, and understanding were essential to human flourishing. I knew that previous conceptions of ‘traditional values’ were pretty much bullshit. But I also knew that as human beings, in order to thrive, we needed certain moral structures to refer to. Basically I knew that the time I was living in wasn’t one of unbridled cynicism. It was a time where cynicism remained; yet it was also juxtaposed, and increasingly oscillated with, ideas surrounding The Good.

To deny The Good as a part of our reality is to deny a part of reality itself. Therefore, if one wants to capture or reflect the reality human beings experience through art; The Good must be considered in some form. This doesn't mean one should engage in naive sophistry about earnest human feeling. But it also doesn't mean earnest feeling should be negated or cast aside. The Good should be considered in terms of the way it functions in our consciousness. Our minds know The Good is real, and we yearn for it. We recognize the absence of The Good in terms of situations concerning injustice and inequality. We experience The Good in fleeting moments; and sometimes we try to chase it through false means. Unbridled cynicism doesn’t reflect the reality of the human condition, nor does it reflect the metamodern nature of our current times. The question for the artist who seeks to capture our current moment is not whether to engage with The Good. Rather it’s how to engage with The Good in a way that reflects its true nature.

The Problem With AI 'Art' Generators

Recent advancements in ‘artwork’ created by artificial intelligence have generated much excitement and discussion. Social media feeds have been filled with AI images generated from simple text based prompts. Users can produce slick, stylized, ‘artwork’ based on their favorite music lyrics, sci-fi fantasy descriptions, or random illustration requests. The visual or technical quality of artificial pictures has advanced to the point that they have now achieved commercial value. As the technology and image quality continues to improve, individuals will probably buy AI generated ‘art’ to suit their decorative or creative tastes. While corporations will most likely use the technology for advertisements, and publications might seek to use it for editorial illustrations. Yet the problem with this artificial ‘art’ revolution is the same as those that flow from most of our digital, technological advancements. The new technology just arrives on the scene of humanity, without any time for consideration about its impact on society, or discussion about its proper use.

It should be noted that I’m using the word ‘artwork’ in quotations when discussing the products of AI image generation. For I don’t believe that the images generated by the current iteration of AI programs should be considered art. True artwork is a product of self awareness and consciousness. A conscious creature perceives the world, applies the subjective nature of their mind, and creates an image or object derived from their mental processes. As of today, even the latest AI has not achieved self awareness or consciousness yet. AI image generators use processes that are more akin to those of a mechanical bread maker than a sentient creative being. For example, the AI image system ‘DALL-E 2’ uses a process called ‘diffusion’, which is a kind of digital programming that learns how to build images via dot and pattern recognition. Just as with the mechanical bread maker, there is no creativity at play. A human mind decides what ingredients to input into the machine, and out comes whatever bread (or images) they desire.

To be sure, the machine learning and algorithms that lie behind the latest AI image creation programs are more advanced than the straight forward engineering of a mechanical bread maker. Yet the basic principle remains the same. Both the mechanical bread maker and the AI image generator are tools designed to make a human task more efficient and easier. Both tools allow a task to be completed by a ‘non-expert’. Meaning the average person could perform the task of baking bread or creating an illustration without the help of a baker or artist. Yet this kind of technological efficiency comes at a price. Not a price that is measured by markets or interest rates, but one that is measured by human consciousness; or some would say, the human soul.

One day in the future, the improvement in self driving technology will remove the need for taxi drivers, limo drivers, or truck drivers. For the millions of people employed in these professions, this technological advancement will require them to find a new way to make a living. One would think that such an economic upheaval would only take place after meticulous planning and consideration. Yet ‘planning and consideration’ for such an event would only flow from a value (or moral) structure that has humanistic considerations. But in our ideologically atomized, techno-centric world, the dominant value structure is capitalism itself. And of course, capitalism is great for generating wealth and spurring technological advancement. But it was never intended to function as a wholesale, societal organizing system. Think of it this way. In Western countries where capitalism has become the dominant value structure, city development has moved steadily away from humanistic considerations. Instead of urban development that creates livable, multi-class neighborhoods; land and buildings are used as tools to generate the maximum amount of profit.

This is the terrain that AI automation will operate in; unfettered capitalism versus concerns surrounding human or social capital. There has been no discussion or planning about the human consequences of unleashing advanced AI image generators on the world. Not to mention the fact that every image generator had to be ‘trained’ on existing images. As of December 2022, two of the more advanced AI image tools (DALL-E 2 and Midjourney) have not made their initial program training datasets public. It defies belief that within datasets consisting of potentially billions of images, that there weren’t many that were used without permission. But what can be done now? The cat is out of the bag. Artists and photographers throughout history have unwittingly contributed to creating a technology that will try to render much of their future tradecraft obsolete. 

Visual artists engaged in painting or ‘contemporary art making’ seem to be safe for now. That is until a fully conscious AI is able to apply paint to a canvas or create sculptures through subjective introspection. Yet for commercial artists and illustrators, there is a tsunami coming. Straddling the world of art and capitalism, they are especially vulnerable to an unsympathetic technological revolution. As AI image technology progresses, corporations and publications will find it hard to avoid the seduction of efficiency. Why deal with artists or handmade art when you can generate a slick illustration from your home computer or office? Just buy a one year subscription to an AI image generator like it was an Adobe graphics program, and generate any kind of image you can imagine.

Existing artists and illustrators can still fight to copyright their styles and designs. And I imagine publications like The New Yorker, or The New York Times will always value human made illustrations. But what will the world be like for the commercial artists of the future? How will they be able to compete with super advanced AI image generators that can conjure up any design or style they could ever think of? How will future generations of art directors or marketing directors not grow up to embrace the technology simply by circumstance? That is to say, every generation embraces the technology of its day like it is just normal, or ‘good’. A young person born today can never turn away from the smartphone or social media. Just as my generation could not have turned away from video games, cable television, or compact discs.

One phrase or line of thought I refer to often is the saying that the ‘medium is the message’. Coined by the great Marshall McLuhan, the phrase indicates McLuhan’s formulation that the contents of a given medium matter less than the overall effect a medium has on society. This sentiment seems more than accurate when thinking about AI image generation. The products, or creations of non conscious AI image generators will be nothing more than shiny, empty items. The images will be no more than trinkets of efficiency that ultimately grease the wheel of capitalism and business. Yet the overall impact of AI image generation mediums on society will be immense. And herein lies the problem. We are never able to plan or consider the effects of the technological mediums we unleash; because we become so hypnotized by their contents.

As the creator of the AI image generator, DALL-E 2, the company ‘OpenAI’ seems poised for Wall Street fueled, investor backed, financial success. Yet the primary driver of OpenAI’s growth is not DALL-E 2, but its artificial intelligence chat-bot or ‘smart’ search engine, ‘ChatGPT’. One could think of ChatGPT as an intelligent, conversational, Google search engine. Input any text prompt, or inquiry you can think of, and you will get an answer. It can even write ‘poetry’, or essays, which will no doubt send tremors through the writing community in the years ahead. In light of the disruption ChatGPT’s sister program DALL-E 2 will cause to human artmaking, I thought I might as well ask ChatGPT a few questions about the consequences that AI image generation could have on human society.

Here are the three questions I asked ChatGPT, and its responses:

What are some of the negative impacts on humanity as a result of art that is created by artificial intelligence?

There are a few potential negative impacts of art created by artificial intelligence that are worth considering:

Loss of jobs: As AI becomes more advanced, it may be able to create art that is indistinguishable from that created by humans. This could lead to the displacement of human artists, who may struggle to find work in a market that values human-created art less.

Ethical concerns: Some people may have ethical concerns about the use of AI to create art, particularly if the AI is generating content that is inappropriate or offensive.

Loss of human touch: Some people may argue that art created by AI lacks the human touch or emotion that is present in art created by humans. This could lead to a decrease in the value that society places on art.

Intellectual property issues: There may also be issues around who owns the intellectual property rights to art created by AI. If the AI is generating original works of art, it is unclear who should be credited as the creator and who should be entitled to any profits generated by the sale of the art.

What will happen to the profession of commercial illustration as illustrations created by artificial intelligence become more common?

It is possible that the use of AI to create illustrations could lead to the displacement of some human commercial illustrators, particularly if the AI is able to generate high-quality illustrations at a lower cost and faster turnaround time than humans. However, it is also possible that the use of AI could open up new opportunities for human illustrators. For example, human illustrators may be able to specialize in creating more complex or nuanced illustrations that are beyond the capabilities of current AI systems, or they may be able to use AI as a tool to help them create illustrations more efficiently. Ultimately, the impact of AI on the field of commercial illustration will depend on how the technology is developed and adopted.

Since human society revolves around capitalism, does it care about the negative effects that come with automation via artificial intelligence?

Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals and businesses own and control the means of production and distribution of goods and services, and prices are determined by supply and demand. The primary goal of capitalism is to generate profit, and as a result, businesses may be motivated to adopt new technologies, including AI, if they believe it will help them to increase their profits. This can lead to automation, including the displacement of human workers by machines or AI systems, as businesses seek to reduce labor costs and increase efficiency.

While the adoption of AI and automation can bring many benefits, such as increased efficiency and productivity, it can also have negative impacts, including the displacement of human workers. It is up to society to decide how to balance the benefits and costs of AI and automation and to put in place policies and regulations that can mitigate some of the negative impacts.

This noble, final concept articulated by ChatGPT is one that society has already failed to heed when it comes to illustrators and commercial artists. If there was a slogan for AI fueled capitalism, it might be ‘shit out of luck’ followed by a middle finger emoji. Because that seems to be where all this is headed. Our future AI tools will emerge without little warning or consideration for their human consequences. Similar to the way social media emerged and crashed our national discourse. Except the consequences that flow from our AI tools will affect the very soul of the human beings they impact. They will take aim at what makes life meaningful for many, and what makes this human life, ‘human’ for some.

Art 'Of its Time'; A Causal Examination

In a philosophical sense, a metaphysical outlook can be taken as one’s view on the nature of reality. From this outlook then flows philosophical views on things like ethics, epistemology, or the human mind. In my view, certain modes of artistic creation flow from metaphysical constructs as well. Yet unlike a philosopher directly trying to define an unseen metaphysic, the artist is more apt to use feelings or intuition as guides to create things that bring metaphysical formulations to life. The causal nature of this process can fall anywhere between total determinism, or (seemingly) conscious, freely decided action. That is to say, one artist might be moved overwhelmingly by an uncanny feeling to paint a certain way. While another artist might examine the same uncanny feeling in a more rational or intellectual manner first; then proceed towards a creative undertaking.

This then begs the question, is art ‘of its time’ a product simply deriving from the metaphysics of the day; or is it an active interrogation of the metaphysical water the artist is swimming in? It would seem, at least initially, that the feelings that emerge in the consciousness of the artist are determined by the nature of the world around them. That is to say, like all humans, the artist doesn’t control the initial thoughts and feelings that pop into consciousness. This mental process was touched upon in Robert Wright’s recent book, ‘Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment’. In his book, Wright goes into detail about the interaction between our emergent feelings, our ‘modular’ minds, and how evolution has shaped the process of our decision making. 

Wright maps out the human predicament of our actions being largely determined by an external causal network and our internal evolutionary programming. His discourse centers on how Buddhist philosophy, and more importantly, meditation can be seen as remedies to our modern situation. Yet in terms of this writing, it is Wright's basic description of how we as humans must 'detach' from our feelings in order to better understand them which seems relevant. This mode of 'feeling observation' is the basic action of mindfulness meditation. This action of acknowledging our feelings, yet maintaining a certain distance in order to better judge them, seems to mirror the tension or oscillation that many artists experience.

The causal chain outside, and inside the mind of the artist seems to flow something like this: the metaphysics of the day lead to feeling, which then leads to acknowledgement, which finally leads to action. The greatest variable in the process would be the mental space concerning ‘acknowledgement’. Some artists might be keen to let their emergent feelings move directly into action. While other artists might ponder the origin and nature of their feelings before moving forward. There is no right way to go about this process of course. And there are certainly more shades of gray involved than black and white determinations. Yet I do think this is the basic framework in which art ‘of its time’ is created. If one were to look for artists whose creativity seemed to embody this process, there would be no shortage of candidates. Yet there are two that remain close to my heart for differing reasons. One is Andy Warhol, whose mastery captured the metaphysics of his time like few have before or since. The other is the late Vito Acconci, who was a contemporary of Warhol, and my professor at Brooklyn College.

During pretty much all of my conversations with Vito, we would discuss the metaphysics of the day. Although I’m pretty sure Vito would hate the word ‘metaphysics’, so I’ll just say that we tried to make sense of what the fuck was actually happening in the convoluted world around us. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was percolating with thoughts that I would eventually decipher as metamodern. Vito would often say of his own work decades ago that he just ‘wanted to be of his time’. This sentiment is why I think I gravitated towards his thinking. Though we were very different in our creative output; we both sought to acknowledge and inspect the feelings the outside world had spurred within us. It was not enough to simply ride metaphysical waves to a destination. We needed to examine where the wave was coming from and where it was taking us.

Some of the first lectures Vito gave our class were survey’s of his life’s work. Around 73 years old at the time, yet still vibrant and inquisitive; Vito would click through slides of his art while ruminating on his thoughts and inspirations. I recorded the audio of a portion of this, and still have it today. Like many in his generation, Vito was raised in the shadow of religion, but quickly saw no use for it by the time he came of age in the 1960’s. The age of modernist metaphysics (that had seen its apogee in the years after the end of World War II) was quickly coming apart as a new generation looked to deconstruct what was outdated and unjust. Authority wasn’t to be blindly followed anymore, it was to be questioned. Traditions weren’t to be heeded simply because they existed. Instead they were to be examined and discarded like expired milk. Society was going to be torn down and remade; the only question was how.

By the end of the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s; political assassinations, civil unrest, and the Vietnam War had left their imprint on American society. The metaphysics of the day influencing the mind of Vito were those of deconstruction, feelings of cynicism, and finding new pathways to meaning. In 1969 Vito created a work called, ‘Following Piece’. The work entailed Vito finding a random person on the streets of New York City, and following them everywhere he could until they entered a private space. During his lecture, when speaking about the inspiration for the piece, Vito would say he was thinking, ‘how do I connect, how do I connect with the world around me, with people around me’. This seems like an apt metaphor for a time in which the old ‘rules and ways’ about how, and who you could connect with were discarded. Which then raises the existential question: how does one connect with the world if nothing in the world tells them how anymore?

Vito would go on to talk about an exhibition in 1970 he was invited to participate in at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The show was titled, ‘Information’, and Vito described it as the first show in New York (and maybe the United States) that was trying to ‘come to grips’ with what was coming to be known as ‘so called conceptual art’. Upon being invited to participate, Vito described thinking he thought museums were ‘totally opposite’ to what he wanted to do. He would say he wanted his work to be in ‘everyday space’, and that ‘museums seemed to be the enemy; (and that) museums seemed to be a specialized place’. Again, this shows how Vito was internalizing the metaphysics of the day. By 1970, institutions, whether they were the federal government, the church, or the military; they had all lost their veneer of virtue. All concentrated institutional power, including museums, were to be treated with suspicion.

Vito’s piece in the exhibition was a work called ‘Surface Area’. The installation consisted of a table with a plastic, open top container. For the duration of the show, Vito arranged that his mail be delivered to the Museum of Modern Art. This meant that instead of simply fetching his mail from his Manhattan building lobby, he would have to ride the subway to the museum; and ‘perform’ some action with the mail at the installed table. Vito called this an important work for his thinking because it made him realize that maybe instead of thinking about exhibitions, maybe he should be thinking about ‘doing an activity that would result in something he needed’ (or wanted). For Vito the act had become ‘the art’. He had transported a mundane, everyday task to a place that was reserved for ‘special’ things and people. The metaphysics of the day were spurring feelings of subversion and a search for personal meaning. Vito’s acknowledgment of these feelings led him to take physical actions in response. Actions that will forever be known as vanguards of conceptual and performance art.

While the feelings that emerge in the consciousness of the artist can spur physical action. They can also spur formal innovation. A little less than ten years before Vito Acconci began to crystalize the metaphysics of the day through action; Andy Warhol began to capture the metaphysics of the day through silkscreen and photography. The early 1960’s were a time when the ‘mass media’ society we know today began to come into formation. The television was becoming a media force despite its black and white visual limitations. National news began to change from modernist, idealistic narratives to realistic, unvarnished communication. And celebrities were reaching their full status as idols showered with dehumanizing love and ridicule. Warhol was able to fully detach and observe his feelings about the changing times. Yet despite his view from a position of nowhere, he still felt attached to the metaphysics of the day. Around 1963 Warhol would tell a newspaper reporter, ‘I feel very much a part of my times, of my culture - as much a part of it as rockets or television’.

Warhol’s early use of the silkscreen technique captured the effect that the television medium was having on the minds of individuals. Warhol brought to life Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase, ‘the medium is the message’. McLuhan’s phrase articulated that the effect a medium has on society matters more than its content. Warhol’s silkscreens captured the unseen metaphysical effect of television and revealed its existence. The medium was the message in Warhol’s silkscreens. Yet it was his chosen content depicted through the silkscreen medium that fully cemented his work as ‘of its time’.

On August 4th, 1962 the famed actress and star Marilyn Monroe overdosed on barbiturates and died in Los Angeles. Her death was reported by the media as a suicide. Warhol, acting on the suggestion of a friend, immediately decided to make Monroe the subject of his next silkscreen paintings. The natural imperfections in the silkscreen process mirrored the dark side of fame and American ‘star culture’ that Monroe’s death represented. The blocks of color layered with the black and white photo mirrored the mental image the average citizen had of Monroe. After all, they had never met her, but they ‘knew’ her through print and film images. The overall feeling the Marilyn works evoked was one of ‘metaphysical storytelling’. Almost as if they were telling the viewer; ‘you loved her, you made her, yet you didn’t really know (or care for) her; and we all probably contributed to her death’.

A little over a year after Marilyn Monroe’s death, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November of 1963 would mark the unofficial end of American modernist innocence. As a seismic historical and cultural event, the assassination of President Kennedy was also one of the first instances of collective mass media fueled mourning. Every newspaper, radio, and television news program was devoted to covering the murder of the young President. This would seem appropriate given the enormity of the event. Yet for Warhol, from his detached position of metaphysical observation, he saw something different. He observed the feelings that were being stoked within himself, and in the masses at large. In the aftermath of the assassination, Warhol would say, ‘he (Kennedy) was handsome, young, smart, but it didn’t bother me that much that he was dead - what bothered me was the way television and radio were programming everybody to feel so sad. It seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get away from the thing.’

From a humanistic standpoint, Warhol’s detachment could be seen as cold. Yet it did allow him to see the aftermath of the assassination as it was happening from the outside looking in; rather than simply being swept away by the feelings of the day. This led him to create a series of paintings depicting Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy. The works captured some of the same fleeting notions of fame and illusion that his Marilyn Monroe works captured. Yet it was their window into the voyeuristic grief the country was experiencing that might have been their greatest power. Jacqueline Kennedy was an avatar for the ‘glamor fantasy’ of the Kennedy presidency; and she became an avatar for the country’s mourning after her husband’s killing. In his piece, ‘Nine Jackies’ Warhol captured the essence of her transition while again mirroring the television medium that was engrossing the minds of the masses. His use of distinct, yet low resolution, black and white imagery mimicked the mental images retained in the public consciousness. If Warhol did indeed believe the minds of the masses were being ‘programmed’ by mass media, this was his way of revealing the source code.

It seems hard to argue that both Warhol and Vito Acconci were not just products of their time, but projectors of it. They each were able to maintain a certain distance from their feelings and examine their origin. The question for our current times is how does our atomized, de-centralized reality correspond to this process of feeling detachment?  During Warhol’s and Acconci’s time, there was really only ‘one reality’. That is to say, as I have discussed before, the metaphysical nature of their time was condensed; while the metaphysics of today are scattered and nonlinear. This then raises the question, when an artist of today detaches and examines the root cause of their feelings; are they drilling down into the nature of reality as whole, or just their portion of it? Maybe there are two sets of feelings to be examined now. One set deriving from the atomized nature of overall reality itself. And one set deriving from our own digitally backed reality within the overall structure. In any case, it would seem that the causal chain of an external metaphysical reality spurring feelings; that are then acknowledged by the artist, is a bit more complicated in this time of metamodernism. Our feelings often lead us astray in terms of the nature of the world around us. If we are indeed dealing with two sets of feelings now, the modern artist needs to be wary of the illusions or falsehoods that can come by mistaking one set for the other.