#artistic ethics

[salamanderinspace]

So there's this episode of Netflix's "Easy," which is a series of disconnected stories with a very lit fiction vibe. There's this episode called "Art and Life," starring Marc Maron, who I like even though he always plays a really difficult old boomer guy. In this show he plays an aging comic book artist who is losing his audience. He just wrote a new book called "Obscurity" and he's feeling very irrelevant. His two ex wives left him - it's implied that they felt violated that he talked about them in his work. That they felt their privacy was violated.

Then he meets this young woman, an art grad student, who he's very dismissive of, but she hooks up with him. While he's sleeping she takes a photo of them together and she ends up using it in her art show. He goes, he sees the work, he loses it in rage--because he feels violated. And she's like "well, it's the same thing you do." And he's like "no it's not."

(The show doesn't weigh in on this argument, but IMO it absolutely is the same thing. And IMO it's human and necessary to tell our stories, even if other people don't like them or how they represent the world.)

They have this big argument in public and the video of it goes viral. And it … solves his problem. His obscurity problem. Now everyone wants to come to his readings. And she comes, this young grad student, and they have a slightly more civil discourse there. The episode ends with him saying he was embarrassed of how he acted but that it turned out ok because he's been selling books.

It's interesting because you don't see that story too often - someone being emotionally genuine in a way that hurts people, and then they have a happy ending. The interesting thing to me is that this young girl, she maintained such grace when her work was being attacked. I think because she viewed the discourse as part of the work, too. And I relate to that, but I also don't know if I could maintain that kind of distance 24/7. Marc Maron's character doesn't.

IDK! It's easy to be confident and stand up for your right to speak when you're young and thin and pretty, and everyone is listening. Maybe that's why the show is called "Easy."

[castingmysilver]

....I do have *feelings* about "AI" art. Even separately from the issue of AI spitting out convincing-sounding bs writing containing misleading information.

I am not theoretically opposed to the idea of humans having an automated digital tool for interpreting neat concepts from their heads, from which they can then draw future inspiration or just communicate an idea more clearly to their friends. I actually used to daydream about it. But...

The way that it works *as things now stand,* is that it is essentially...

Do you remember the "blends" and "photo manips" that used to be popular in fanworks communities? Snag some popular media screencaps or even somebody else's art, erase the edges around objects, layer things up and change transparencies, whatever, until you had something cute you could use for a desktop background or fan-forum signature graphics?

It seems to me from my understanding of "AI" art now that much of it if not all of it is just outsourcing the labor on a really fancy blend, then refusing to credit the artists and properties sourced, and pretending it is so thoroughly yours that you can ethically sell it. No matter how many weeks the artist may have worked on it plus the training time they spent learning their tools, and no matter that they may personally be selling the originals, and no matter that sometimes it contains their and their friends' likenesses in portrait form.

Like... I did use other artists' work in blends sometimes as a kid but I never claimed ownership of the material, I put a disclaimer that I was willing to remove it on request if I posted it anywhere, and I *still* feel it was on ethically iffy ground.

And so much AI art generation is drawn out of databases of living artists' work, without their consent, sometimes in spite of them trying to indicate a desire to opt out? And if they use filters that make it harder to steal they can get actual *death threats* for "corrupting the data pool," because when their work gets stolen *anyway* against their *explicit, repeated No* they had the audacity to make life a little harder for the folks doing it.

I know it's a Pandora's box we've already opened technologically but I still... wish there was more legal recourse for independent artists with the *desire* to protect their work, and without knowing whose work was or wasn't "blended" by the algorithm at the user's request even truly beautiful and interesting "AI" art tends to make me very concerned.

[salamanderinspace]

"Fiction is a way to practice intense emotional states, but that doesn't make fiction harmless."

-Dan Olsen, A Lukewarm Defense of 50 Shades of Grey

[salamanderinspace]

I feel like this is a good take in general, but I’m also posting because of the fact that it’s six years old, and people have been having this particular conversation for way longer than that.  More generally, the “is this media problematic?” conversation is as old as time, as old as plays in Ancient Greece and probably older.  It’s just that our social standards for what is inappropriate, harmful, uncomfortable, etc. are always changing.  I don’t think fandoms are more toxic now than ever before.  I’d much rather be part of a community where people perceive animal endangerment or racism or fatphobia as violent threats (and respond with according levels of violence) than a community where people don’t see these things as violent at all.

[millicentthecat]

It took several years and a kind of random essay on the onnanoko shashinka but I think I found words for antis that feel right.

If art is a transhumanist tool to extend the self (the way babies are a humanist tool to extend the self) and we all acknowledge that that the self is more than just a weapon--that is, a tool to be honed and used against the culture--if we agree that the self is the culture, vitally and validly inseparable from it, actively built by it and building it as waves make the ocean--then artistic ethics wank changes tone and texture from “which of us get to speak and be right” to “both of us have to speak and be right.”  Because even a voice that says “I destroy you” is breathing my air and speaking with my voice at all times.  As I speak with yours.

[eco-base]

Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility.

Umberto Eco

[hillarykobernickpoetry-blog]

Integrity Sucks (Where and Why Poets Have to Sell Out)

This is a poem. Okay, it’s not, it’s oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard. It’s Edward Munch’s 1893 painting The Scream. But. This is a metaphor. Let’s pretend for a moment this is a poem and my friend Edward Munch is a slam poet. Edward is about to go on stage and he wants to his poem just like this.

But, Edward wants to win the slam and he knows this poem, looking like this, doesn’t get 10’s, or even 9's. So he does this (which is done by Joel Grannas):

Or this (by L. Lingas):

Or even this:

Slam poetry is the process to asking, “How much will I sell out my art?” And to compromise, to parody yourself, is good and funny and at times, appropriate. Because slam happens on a grading scale, when you become a slam poet, you move from doing the work for the satisfaction to doing the work so you can become valedictorian.

Think of it this way. Slam began with poetry. Poetry is art. This is a controversial statement for two reasons (1. What is poetry? 2. What is art?) I’ll define art, at least, with a little help from my old friend Wikipedia: “Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect.”

BUT, because slam deliberately arranges people to judge how a poem has influenced and affected the senses, emotions, and intellect, it is antithetical to artistic integrity (artistic integrity being the art the artist wanted to reveal to the audience). Sacrificing artistic integrity is not an inherently bad thing (perhaps I say this self-justifyingly).

The other thing that happens in slam is a very socialist, liberal, and terrifying thing: the artist revokes full ownership of the art. A poem moves from a purely literary or oral experience to an interactive, collaborative experience. Each time you perform a poem, it looks a little different; it becomes a different artwork each time. This is not bad. This is, for lack of a better term, artistic evangelism.

On the other hand, it’s still a sacrifice of integrity. Control of what you produce is no longer in your hands alone. And you’re still participating in a patronage system—you’re competing for love, recognition, and often money. This is where integrity is really compromised. Most of us have 3-6 poems that consistently slam well and our temptation is to only use those same poems in competition. For example, some poets avoid their gay poems or their sad poems or their woman poems in order to garner more points. Or they play their sad poems and their pity poems (what we call "pimping pain for points.") And that’s dumb (so much so that a deeper explanation seems excessive).

As a slammer, I really suck at balancing artistic integrity and the desire of the judges. I try to use three (ambiguous and loose) rules to guide my ethic. Bottom line, there’s always artistic compromise. It comes with any art; we’re influenced by our audience’s response. So it’s always a balance act. But these rules often help me.

1. Do the poem that lets you do more poems. This is where I throw integrity to the dogs. I want to do as many poems as I can. I like getting on stage. I like being liked. Screw my heart, I want to win their hearts.

2. Do the good poem. This is ambiguous, almost unhelpfully so. Often, when (and if) I get to the final round of a slam, I do the poem that I’ve been sitting on all night. Or I do the poem I want to leave the audience with. Conversely, I’ll start the night with “the good poem”—the poem I’ve been itching to do all week, even if it’s not usually a high-scoring poem. My theory is that if that’s where I am, that’s the only place I can take the audience convincingly. Unless it’s tournament or if I’m competing for a slam team. Then, I do the poem that will get me onto the team, so that I can do more poems (see #1).

3. If they ask for it, give it to them. This applies especially to sexist, homophobic, racist, self-absorbed, cheap shot, poems. If I’m in a slam with all men, I do “the woman poem” without hesitation. If I’m in a slam with all self-absorbed sob stories, I do the “get over yourself” poem. I try to change the perspective. Because slam is, above all, slam is a dialogue. If someone starts the conversation about sexism, or revenge, or God… then yes, I will respond. Thank you very much for asking, but these are my three minutes. And I’ll say what my integrity dictates (mostly).