The Commodification of Art

Art resonates because there is something true behind it. All art has at least a grain of truth, but the more truth layered within a work the more of an impact it seems to have. So if an artist wants to make art that resonates then it should come from someplace genuine, which demands a purification process of sorts. The lies that muddy the mind must be sufficiently filtered out before the waters of creativity are pure enough to create something meaningful.

Out of that purified spring an emotional acuity develops which demands we consistently kill ourselves to find authenticity in a world of lies and disingenuous ambitions. Perhaps literally killing yourself is too dramatic, but death of the subconscious competitive inner salesman is imperative if one is to take even the briefest of sojourns into truth. Lies are unsustainable things that take great effort to maintain, eventually the weight of a lie becomes too cumbersome culminating in death by some means, acceptance of the real or a bare bodkin.

In that regard you have to consider the likes of Kurt Cobain. Perhaps there was a lie he could not live with, one he could not accept. So Cobain did the only thing an authentic artist trapped within his own popularity could think to do in a hyper commodified world, he blew his top off before it started smiling and selling pickup trucks on the TV. Hey man, nice shot. Yet still, he could have turned and faced something other than a shotgun, but resolve is often in short supply throughout many periods of our lives. Art is a release, but sometimes it's not enough to cut to the core fast enough before we run out of strength to carry on.

And not that you should kill yourself, however the recent uptick in those who desire to check out of this dimension suggests there are many who can’t accept living in a sea of tacitly accepted lies. It's the snappy crunch of a collective consciousness that’s had enough of selling out, who can no longer repress their whirring minds to keep reality out of the present moment. Not enough technology fetishes, not enough noise, not enough distraction. Not enough super bowl halftime shows, not enough sexual temptations, just not enough Pavlovian responses to numb out the dull hammer of truth knocking on the door.

The likes of Van Gogh, Cobain, Sylvia Plath, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lenny Bruce...They were all invested into drugs and/or lifestyles that eventually kills the artist. The creative light dims after an onslaught of bad relationships, fame, press engagements, alcohol, coke, heroin, antidepressant pharmaceuticals - drugs that numb out the mind rather than explore it. The sticky truth was too loud, at odds with their lives, and they had a death drive somewhere that wanted out rather than selling a manufactured version of themselves. Perhaps a creeping tide of dour inner dialogue was cutting off mental escape routes; a tide consisting of voices from the past, self judgments, and a grim future outlook left them feeling cornered.

Capitalism, with its process of commodification, must shoulder part of the blame. It represses, constricts choices, and offers solutions that aren't solutions at all, just options to continue the drudgery with different drugs of distraction. If things like meditation, psychedelics and the value of authentic local community were more emphasized and normalized than numbing agents prescribed by a for profit healthcare system then you have to think some suicidal tendencies could have been averted by many people. One can only surmise at this point, but not even fame and success in a field artists love is enough to reach stasis, as success in capitalism can feel like a betrayal of truth.

"What have I eaten? Lies and smiles." - Sylvia Plath

The owners smile at you feigning friendship on equal ground while also fervently maintaining the best practices to maximize profits off your labor. Opportunism is their central ethic, as they prod you along in their carrot and a stick jobs stealing your life away for the minimum amount they can pay you. The predatory capitalist mind has studied the human cows and learned what motivates just enough to entice so you’ll do what they want - but will never let you go free unless one has the courage to surrender and walk away from the game.

As long as some group of people can make us sell ourselves out and do things we wouldn’t ordinarily do if it were not for the almighty dollar, then we are in part commodified products ourselves. Sold out to the system with each moment we are taking orders from someone else simply so that money can be made.

Some have made note that our whole life is like a piece of art, and we are living art each moment. I like that idea. And in that regard, when we are at work for capitalists we are the living representation of commodified art. We are package wrapped versions of ourselves.

People tend to dislike fake people, or people who act completely different around a different crowd, yet we’re largely condoning a system that makes us act fake in nearly every job. When we go to work we are playing a role. We are to a good degree an archetype of a capitalist position while in that job, a trucker, farmer, sales, tech support, lawyer, cook...these are characters we are required to play in dreadfully rote capitalist theater.

The profiteering mind has become sophisticated in its efforts to parasitically extract labor from its host, and money is its weapon of choice for furtive tyranny. Every choice made for more money corrupts the mind. Yet, corruption to some degree is a near inevitability due to the money system where currency is intentionally deprived from the populace to keep them desperate regardless of the material resources actually available.

Through these commodified processes owners overwrite natural virtues with their own self serving recommendations for public behavior, such as becoming competitive and judging your worth in comparison to others; fostering a keeping up with the Joneses mentality. The powers that be are always championing hard work ascetic values around labor and wearing it as an absurd badge of honor. For it does not matter what kind of work you do, so long as you work hard at it and follow the orders of your employer. This capitalist system venerates people who energetically comply with dreary workaday lives because it wants them to have buy-in to their worker bee roles they play for oligarchs.

Systems that impose capitalism convince people to take pride in their wage-slavery. It’s tacitly or outright said a few times during most commercial breaks. You’ve no doubt seen the commercials where some popular song plays in the background while showing banal scenes of labor meant to bring nobility to the work ethic of the common working pleb. Probably every political campaign has some version of this in their advertising. Giving a pat on the back for doing the grunt work for an opportunistic manipulative socioeconomic system.

Though that song in the commercial is no longer art, even if it started as such. It’s now being associated with a commodity, at least for a time, that negates the authentic meaning it once had in your mind. Commodified art becomes like a pod person in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It used to be alive and have its own free will but now is just a replica of the original that has different intent - Which is to sell you something.

A more pure definition of art deals in none of this selling out and doesn’t create with the hope that it will lead to financial success. Hence the development of the artist is something much different than the capitalist employee. Artists require incubation time to refine their connection and master their medium where they must become aware, questioning boundaries, and feel an emotional kick behind their craft. Making art requires you be fucking alive. It isn't motivated by the potential sale, at least the authentic parts of any of it don't originate from the idea of selling it.

Artists who mainline truth don't often shake out well in these systems. Good art isn't heavily promoted in commodified systems, it's suppressed in preference of the easily cloned styles that can be put at eye level and entice the lowest common denominator. Commodified art will often try to sound edgy, yet doesn’t want to say too much because it will limit sales. Capitalist enterprise takes the hooks of other art that may have spoken truth to you before and attempts to create endless shoddy copies to make more revenue. It's never quite the same when it's repackaged since commodified art is dead on arrival pop culture swill, market tested with built in audiences and projected sales forecasts make it a can’t miss profitable commodity. It's a sure thing you consumed something similar last month only arranged slightly differently. We all sense we're being fed something flavorless even though it looks just like the succulent sandwich we once had. But it’s a facsimile still producing Pavlovian salivations yet fails to satiate when consumed.

Conversely, well crafted art removes the veil and artificial boundaries a commodified culture places over us. Art that elucidates is commonly delivered in layered metaphorical abstraction that allows for seeing past the abstractions in our lives. It speaks in strange ways, by evoking feelings that help us remember what we’ve somehow always known to be true, yet abandoned at some point out of suffering or learned helplessness. It shows us how the fluorescent lights and office cubes are robbing us of an honest life.

Artists are more emotionally plugged in than most, they channel this energy to cut through the layers of bullshit and hit something true underneath this boondoggle culture. These artists, thinkers, iconoclasts go to great extent to communicate, yet their message is so often buried underneath a deluge of profit seeking hacks. It's too bad some of the most insincere are made rich and famous merely because they are better sellouts and more compliant with profit motives of parasitic executives. Conversely some of the more worthy are poor and unrecognized because they didn't compromise or couldn’t afford advertising.

"In this century Ezra Pound called the artist “the antennae of the race.” Art as radar acts as “an early alarm system,” as it were, enabling us to discover social and psychic targets in lots of time to prepare to cope with them." - Marshall McLuhan

If artists are the early alarm system then perhaps we should start giving more weight to their forecasts. Unfortunately most iconoclasts first receive large doses of derision and mockery before they are given a hint of consideration. In this regard our society seems grossly out of balance, we are ruled by the profit seeking minds of the managerial class and their appropriated self serving versions of art while the avant-garde is given little thought. However perhaps the purpose of an artist in society isn’t to be widely sold and popularized, but rather to be a whisper on the wind speaking through alternative methods because there is something important to say that’s not getting through by conventional means.

Each would-be artist is aware in some capacity of a choice that is made with each creation. They sense what is easy and has mass appeal, and that which may be unpopular but is important to be heard. Frequently this inner battle for authenticity isn’t even close, the sold out side wins easily with massive amounts of people conceding to create what seems pragmatic, which is to produce what sells like a businessman while the more daring expressions are left fallow. And there are those that think, I’ll sellout first and then say what I really mean once I’m established, however more often it seems the art they meant to make initially never sees the light of day.

The system seeks to ensnare minds and homogenizes thought in a funneling process that occurs when capitalism attempts to cut costs and market test for what sells and then feeds that back into their designs. There’s much that gets ignored because it’s unconventional or doesn’t produce a euphoric high of something like a superhero film.

When cost cutting minds are responsible for how most decisions are made then the money becomes the first priority and the product a distant second, thus things are produced at a quality commensurate to the minimum standard that will garner the most profits. In this regard we are all now cultural refugees in a Potemkin village culture. There’s little authentic meaning anymore here. It’s all been hollowed out, Hallmarketed™ to death in trite saccharine sweet sentimentality that masks the ugly truth. The original culture the art is representing died decades ago. In its place a cheap ersatz semi real thing, a theme park experience of culture, simulated for your somnolence, with planned cultural obsolescence baked in.

Mainstream commodified art serves as cultural Xanax and has become so pervasive it’s no longer saying anything, but has become like a word repeated over and over until it’s meaningless and just something to be consumed for enjoyment. Commodification dilutes and twists whatever real message is there until the only thing it’s really saying is a sales pitch to consume more. It’s art that’s a reflection of a blurred reflection. What authentic things our culture was based upon have been appropriated for sale, even our suffering. The music, movies…all mediums of art and the meaning of language itself, is now a packaged commodified version of itself that’s been refried, rebranded and fed back to us at inflated prices.

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