Content creation can be a tricky thing. When you are working for clients you have a much different task than when you are creating content for the public, but they are very much related. In both cases, you have to consider the purpose of your task. When you work for a client, there are multiple overlapping areas of concern. You have to create content that works for you, for the brand, for the brand’s investors, and for the public. When you do personal work, you have the same categories of viewers to consider, but their rank of importance is different.
For example, if you are a content creator and you are posting on your own page, you have different goals. You are trying to sell the service, not the content. You are showing people that you can consistently put out high level quality content.
One thing that I want to think about is the difference between content and art and where art lives in today’s world. The marketing world, the media world and the academic world all thrive on content. They are pushing messages. Art is different. What is the message of art?
On one hand, I am not sure that art has any validity in our world at the current juncture. Who are your favorite contemporary artists? What are they doing? Maybe this is a common feature of art, to be misunderstood. Isn’t that part and parcel of the experience of putting art out into the world? In order to push the boundaries of art, you can’t do work that is already accepted. This means that you are going to have to endure lots of people not understanding what it is you are doing or why you would want to do it. Not that artists always understand either. But you have to do things that are not part of the program. At least that’s my understanding of art. I remember Seth Godin talking about how there are places in developing countries where people crank out oil paintings of scenic views and that is not art; it is painting. There is no invention, no originality, no thought. It is simply craft, just a going through the steps to make something.
What is this element that we call art, then, and does it apply to content creation for brands? On the one hand, we have a definition of art as something done extremely well. There is an art to anything. When Kobe Bryant worked his magic on the court there was an artistry to his movement. This is something else, though, than Rodney Mullen figuring out the most insane flatland tricks on a skateboard. Kobe Bryant always had the goal of scoring a basket, of winning the game. In art, the goal is less clearly defined, and the expressivity is much more important. Sure, there is a technical execution to what Mullen does on a skateboard (he either succeeds in making his tricks or doesn’t), but the goal is to do something new, something innovative. Kobe Bryant wasn’t trying to play basketball in a new way, he was just trying to be the best.
It is these two competing definitions of art that leave us somewhere in the middle. Is art a form of experimental research designed to bring new things in the world, or is it a talent contest that aims to bring the best of what already exists into being? Probably both are valid even though they are so different, but they definitely contribute different values to the world. One is playing golf better than it has ever been played. The other is inventing an entirely new game. We need new games, too, since we are evolving as a culture.
I think of these two qualities that we describe as art, excellence and innovation, as being the result of technique and experimentation. In order to hit a golf ball so well that we consider it an art, you have to master the technique of golf. While there may be subtle nuances of invention in your particular version of the swing, it will be fundamentally recognizable as golfing to anyone who knows about golf. This type of “art” is recognizable based on the results and the form of the technique. It is a much easier thing to see. We already know what the activity is and how it is supposed to go, so it is a recognition of quality not of kind.
When you understand the difference between these two definitions of art, you begin to see how people get confused about contemporary art. They are looking for a display of the mastery of technique when what they should be asking is what the artwork means. Art is not just be a display of talent with technique, but it can also be evidence of originality, of invention.
On the other hand, there is the kind of art that is unrecognizable, at first. This kind of art is entirely based upon experimentation and questioning what can be interesting as an art experience or object. Think of Marcel DuChamp’s readymades. There is almost no technique required. Someone else did the work of manufacturing the object. All DuChamp had to do was select it, sign it with a pseudonym, and place it in a context where it was sure to cause people to ask questions. This changed the conversation from technique “how did the artist do this?” to concept “how did the artist dream this up?”
Robots are already making art. We have used machines to create images for almost two hundred years, now. The human element in art is the courage to experiment when failure is both highly probable and when the results matter greatly. This is the thing that defines the kind of artist I admire: the courage to experiment under fire.
And it is for this reason, that I understand art to be more about experimentation than the flawless execution of technique, that I have begun to understand business, war, and media as more related to art than not. Not only is there an art to war, but war is a form of art as well. Business, media, military force, and art all are attempts to influence others in order to create a space to exist. Through these efforts (to build a brand, to produce media, to enact military campaigns, to create art) we collectively create our way of life. Politics and Religion do this also, but I don’t like to discuss those topics because I like you too much to do that to you.
So I’m asking you next time you see something that calls itself art, that is shown in an art context, to ask different questions. Instead of looking to the work to display talent and technique, see if you can just sit with the thing long enough to see what it does to you. If it makes you mad, note that. If it makes you hate art, note that. But whatever it makes you feel, the way to get the most out of an experience of art is to ask what it could mean, what were the stakes of its being made, why does this matter to other people? If nothing else, this kind of art is a form of mental exercise to practice being open minded. Can you sit with a work of art that doesn’t go out of its way to please you long enough to listen to what it might have to say? In a world full of visual yes men, some art that keeps itself at a distance might be just the thing we need. Think about when you go to the grocery store. The cereal boxes are practically jumping off the shelves to give you pleasure. Is this a red light district or Safeway? Chill, cereal boxes, I’m not looking, lol.