More work on the We Robot videos today. I managed draft versions of Robot, My Baby's Non-Binary, Fake Plastic Lies, and P-L-Astic. A long and full day. This is the fastest I can work on these. They are better than no video, better than a simple loop. Not perfect, not a great showcase of my skills or great artworks, but they are adequate for the task. I dislike doing anything that is not my best, that doesn't push me, but those things now take increasingly large amounts of time and resources. The mural (still in limbo) is a case in point. I like/liked the first design, that was and is a good artwork, but would have been a lot of work even if it were approved by the authorities. The second design is an easy compromise.
For these videos I have to compromise. I'm effectively making a 45-minute film to accompany the album. Sometimes I justify jobs because they 'only take a day', but 350 jobs like that is a year of work, and so much of this year has been spent on We Robot, and other music admin; for the glory of art? Music is art.
There are no guides to what we should be doing as artists. No guides to the culture of the now and the future. We can see what other artists of the past did, but they are the past. We must be new, be moving forwards. We can say we are influenced by x or y, but their legacy can't help. They can't help. What we do must be new, satisfactory to our philosophy and feelings as artists. No artist copies others. No artist likes to be compared to another artist of the past.
I wish I could do more, could make these videos better, but there is only so much I can do. I must do my best with the time I have, with the tools I can make. My exhaustion is the measure of my effort, and this is good.
So, my first priority is to complete these; complete, complete! I must finish everything in progress, but not so quickly that the results aren't up to a basic standard. The eternal balance.
Onward!
