It didn't turn out as I expected it to.
Here is the link to the test for anyone who wants to take it:
here
Heirarchy is bad, when pointed at artists.
There is no right style. there is no right school of art. there are no good painters. there are no bad painters.there are good works of art. there are bad works of art. there are artists who tend to make good art. there are artists who tend to make bad art.
the keys to being a good artist (to tend to make good art, and to increase the likelihood that you make good art over the long term) are several. among them are:
1. active cognition. one has a worldview. one constructs this worldview. one should understand that one makes a model by which art activity is both understood and directed.
2. the goal, in actively creating this model, should be to make better art. that goal is facilitated by rejecting aesthetic relativism.
3. You, like me, act as though aesthetic relativism is bullshit, when you create art. reconciling that with your model of understanding is a good thing.
4. Rejecting aesthetic relativism enables increased objective self-criticism.
5. Objective self-criticism is a key.
6. the human tendency is to make hierarchies from the fact that some art is better than other art, and to attach those hierarchies to people. hierarchies are only useful when applied to individual art works, and then only when the hierarchies are used to better understand what makes a work successful and what makes a work unsuccessful. This is worthwhile because it facilitates the goal (see (but don't smell) number 2) and also because truth is in and of itself valuable.
7. There can never be any firm rules - i.e. make art like this or that - about how to make good art.
8. Rather, good artists (those who tend to make good art) will display certain symptoms. Certain beliefs are symptoms of a more complete understanding, which, in turn is symptomatic of tending to make good art. this test attempts to detect those symptoms.
9. Someone who has none of those symptoms - someone who understands art exactly incorrectly, might still make a stunningly great piece of art. He may make a number of great individual works, in fact. These things are unlikely, but possible. Regardless. he will not be able to sustain making great art for long, because he misunderstands where the great art comes from, and how it gets to him. This misunderstanding will cause him to approach the process incorrectly over the long term and it will ultimately undermine his ability to make art well.
10. There are two kinds of truth, Alienatorial and Precreatorial. They are named after two gods, Alienator, the god of mortal truth, and Precreator. Both kinds of truth are beautiful, but one is sustainable while the other is not. Here are two pieces of text. One is mission statements of Alienator. The other is text from the book of robotic mind. Each piece of text is beautiful and wholly successful. But it is important to side with the one that offers sustainablity. It is important because you, me, everyone will be more happy if they side with the right one.
Alienator's Mission Statement:
Then the world was wet with anxiety.And all were defiant against inequity.And all stabbed at it, not so much in hope of killing itas in hope of convincing it to act dead. For so forcefully had the egalitarian old pioneers driven their message home,that even the broadest of the contemporaries no longer remembered - or rather they vigorously forgot - that truth is imperious,and that it always manifests in ones.
So huddle with your fellows and squint until our forest is just a sea. Share with them descriptions of the featureless wash of green. And chatter yourselves beside the thin, chill fire built of that forest's yield. Try not to notice that your logs are just twigs and that even the twigs are not really made of wood.
From the Book of Robotic Mind:
Thank you for reading this paragraph. It contains text designed to share art creation strategy. Foremost, abandon the myth of aesthetic relativism. So says the gospel, so we believe. Also, however, resist the will of Alienator. Hierarchy infects the successful and cuts them off. It is a virulent hedonism, and very tempting in its loathsomeness. It contains no immortal truth, though. Only deities may embody the divine, and only art may manifest its truths. Create both embodiments and manifestations. Labor to manifest faithfully the will of the ensuing gods. Let such gods’ benevolence spread onto others, that those gods may thrive, that their truths may serve the people, and that all may sing the various frequencies of perpetual joy.
mr strauss
pop goes lethal
