Re: mp3 redux

[Jeremy Markowitz <jeremymarkowitz@xxxxxxxxx>]

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Going by the laws of supply and demand, with more music becoming available, the value of an individual recording will surely decrease.  Note, however, the post-industrial popular entertainment complex quickly learned the way to make money is to hook the population onto a star or a genre and then create a multitude of accessories to tap into that craze.  In a way it's like diversifying.  This includes not only records, but posters, buttons, stickers, movies, TV appearances, *T-SHIRTS*, etc.  The masses all want a simulacrum -- or *piece* -- of their favorite avatar in any format they can get it.

The REAL problem of information in the post-digital world is there is too much of it.  The internet is full of conflicting information.  The entities that I see profiting the most are ones that that can "filter" this glut, or at least provide a meaningful and/or entertaining navigation of it.  Isn't that part of why you are subscribed to this list?  In twenty or thirty years, the thing I see myself willing to pay for (or fight for) are services which provide me a stream of entertainment tailored to my likes (or perhaps more acutely, response to trends or other flippant changes in tastes) in a CONVENIENT package without significant tradeoff in fidelity.  Those are the things that consumers truly value to balance price -- having things made for THEM and convenience.  

The artists prior to the information age survived on a model which still exists today and will exist in the future.  Painters and sculptors throughout history have largely been whoring for wealthy or politically powerful patrons.  After the dominance of the church, it became individuals or wealthy art circles running galleries.  The visual artist in the 20th century gained success by finding a patron who would either give them cash/support for a product that was fetishized as "the original" or by an institution who gave them a grant supporting their process/technique.  The difference is these people are not out to make a windfall selling "units." I've always viewed the microsound camp as being more in touch with this model for sure, though it seems to have been invaded by more pop culture influences since I joined.

Meanwhile, I think the addiction to the drug of the superstar is not going by cured by filesharing.  The consumerist society will find other ways to pay for cinderellas who become a generation's personal deities.  Though the current recipies for star-creation may fall out of favor, popular art will still shoot for a multitude of ways to access your chosen -- and filesharing seems like it would only proliferate the popularity for said superstar so you eventually buy their breakfast cereal.  Metallica fights so hard against MP3s because a significant part of their popularity is based in the refusal to "sell-out."  They are definitely caught between a rock and a hard place.  Nor can they cash-in on "ironic" sellouts as someone who straddle pop and high-art camps might.  They seem forever destined to define themselves by touring -- creating the one experience which can't be appropriately replicated by any medium.

High art, on the other hand, will go so far as to artificially reduce the supply -- Matthew Barney, though working in a medium where there was no realistic way to create an "original," made the stipulation that his movies would only be shown in galleries, keeping his pieces within the economy of the art-world.

If you value an underground artist, all you can do is become a patron of them in any way you can.  You have to donate to the museum which holds the installation,  become a member of an organization which curates stuff you like, or just send the person a check.  Spread the word if you are broke.  And if you are a budding experimental artist, the age-old advice is still true today -- find a patron, or join a guild.  In lieu of that, keep creating your folk art in hopes that it will be discovered and appreciated in time.

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deltadada
          
     http://www.deltadada.com/

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