Listening to Stuart Lee's Radio 4 programme about Counter Culture. Thought it odd that he didn't comment on populist politicians being the modern rebels against the mainstream. I digress.
Stuart said that he hated the internet, and I thought yes I do too! - yet I have social media accounts, many websites which I use actively and enjoyably as an archive of my life, and I browse news and check my emails regularly. I hate computers, but love my computer too, it's the first thing I switch on every day. I use my software Prometheus to create music, even though it steals away some humanity from the result. I use digital photography and image processing tools to create my art, even though they steal expression too. What do I dislike? The easiness perhaps. Perhaps I remain embittered at the theft of so much of my life to those things, my decades of sole computer focus, my years wasted on making games (and a good many hours playing them).
Yet, does this mean I love the non-computer aspects of life and art? Not especially. Perhaps the digital world was appealing because it felt better than the real world.
Could I make music non-digitally now? I'd have to buy a tape machine, I expect, but I expect that I'd want or need a multi-track machine, and a mixing desk. Perhaps those things are already a bit 'digital', a bit easy and computerised, a bit controlled and artificial. Perhaps the only pure and organic way to create music would be play live and record the result in one take, or better still play to a live audience alone. Would this feel more satisfying? Perhaps, perhaps not. The music's record as a memory would be transient. The goal of life is resilience, and computers give us better informational resilience. Some aspects of the internet are not resilient, but some things are more resilient by being online. Computers and the internet are hard to ignore today. So much of daily use, official use, demands it. I had to pay £4 extra for real paper train ticket because I don't have or want a smart phone.
In painting I could paint from life. Ignore scanning my drawings, digital photographs, 3D graphics, AI tools. I could make clay models, as I do, and paint exclusively from those, or from my mind's eye. Would electric light be acceptable? Would the Amish of art paint by candle light? These pure results might be better for being more self-expressive, and occasionally I improvise paintings in similar ways, although I often use 2D reference material, like the portrait of Telly Savalas. I tend to be unhappy with the muddy results. These sometimes form a template for a new painting with clearer source material, as in the first Fly In Amber painting, as in the Sappho painting, and so the cycle begins again.
Ultimately, I use technological tools as any other tool: to make a better quality result. Without the internet or computers I'd probably find other aspects of 'real life' I'd dislike. There's a lot of technological interference in a lot of the music and art I like, but it must be a balance decided upon by the artist. Music from the 1950s to today hugely differed in tone by decade primarily due to technology. The muddy mid-range clang of the 1950s. The 'clean' low bass sound of the 1980s. The compressed and constantly loud sound of the 2000s. Perhaps now, we have control over this. We can sound like the 1960s-era Beatles if we want, but few, if any, artists do. Thousands strive to copy their song writing, none strive to have the same limited gamut of tone. We all want to sound like the future. If there are Amish artists, the key question isn't how but what do they depict? Perhaps both how and what have always been inextricably linked.
