The Creator’s Dilemma

Or: The struggle of art's existence when you’re not supposed to

Art is inherently human. Graphics work, music, reverse engineering, architecture, software development. To create something from nothingness. To become immortal, to be remembered. To reach out.

Ultimately, our ability to make art is what separates us as a species from other creatures on art. Not tool usage, not industry (to a point), not being able to understand base-2, base-8, base-10 and base-16 numerical systems. It’s the ambition, and ultimately, it is our fear of death; Not others’, but our own.

Lately there have been a lot of musings regarding art, it’s purpose, and pep-talk to budding would-be-artists, in this newfangled age of tokenized Markov chains, the bullshit generators, the souped up denoisers. And perhaps it might be worth to throw our collective hat into the ring. One of the fundamentals of art is the intermingling of multiple sources and viewpoints, no matter how obtuse or seemingly mundane.

Now, a few words of warning of sorts. Do consider the text contained herein as the incoherent and hurt ramblings of a collective, no statement here should be interpreted as final and we are in no way any authoritative source. Expect also to meander around, circle around the same path many times, and go in unexpected tangents. You’re reading a thought stream after all. This ain’t a proofread best-seller noir.

With this out of the way, it shall be said that these thoughts, while not inherently wrong, they seem to miss the point. Sure. In something as vaguely defined as what it is art, what can some shadows say in the matter? A lot actually. We might not be any more correct than them because our views on art are subjective and subject to change, just like theirs are, just like art is. That is art. Ever changing, beautiful and demanding and cruel and rewarding and soothing and traumatic and everything and nothing at all.

One sentiment that struck with us was that of “Doing art for the hell of it”. They aren’t necessarily wrong, and we get what people who say this mean, but it needs to be said art for the love of art simply doesn’t work. There is always a hidden motive (not in the nefarious way, more like, subconscious).

For us, artwork motives has always been divided in three different main reasons: External validation (shitposting), gratitude towards others (gift art), and personal developments.

For most of our early life we did not know what exactly drove us to art, but with time we figured it out. Remembrance.

We did not want fame, we did not want glory, getting semi-constant work out of it, and thus, income, would be appreciated. But never the goal.

We never knew this, but art became our way to try and live forever, to be remembered for something in a world where we are nothing but a mathematical error. To touch lives, to say: “This is what I went through”. To be a cautionary tale. For the better, and for the worse.

And then, the time came.

Twice.

And twice were we not remembered.

The most common comment we oft get is: “Oh, I thought you died”. Not our art, not the work we did for others, not our contributions to the communities we were part of. Just the ONE thing we wished not to be remembered for.

The universe spent a lifetime trying to kill us, and such, that is the only thing anyone ever remembers. When our work rots, and it’s storage medium vanishes, it won’t matter. When it all went up in flames, it did not matter. What mattered was whether we were gone or not.

It was heartbreaking. It was liberating.

Our output has all but ceased since. We’re still processing this, all these years later. The need for external validation has all but died at this point, we still do shitposts because two songs together might sound nice, and that round bunny yawning letting a big “A” out of their mouth makes for a funny reaction image.

We still do the occasional drawing to other people as a sign of appreciation. We like seeing people smile, and know people out there care.

That leaves us with the last kind of thing that drives our art. Knowing in full nothing ever matters, and we will never be graced by the light, nor will our work be remembered or preserved. It makes both the most sense in the world, and none of it, to draw and write our deepest thoughts, desires, wishes and make them reality, as well as explore the world around us through art.

This leads us to the title of the post. The creator’s dilemma. Why would someone work on art while they are not supposed to even exist?

When the world wants you gone, and does not care, why would anyone even bother creating? Bringing artwork to life? There is nothing to tell, and nobody to listen.

We know of the story of Vivian Maier, a street photographer with a fantastic track record, having made thousands beautiful of pictures during the middle of the 20th century, only to keep them undeveloped in storage boxes in their home. We only know of her and her work after her death, so we will never know what she thought about her own work. She clearly adored it given how well it was preserved, and clearly she did not have an intention to share her art with the world. One can only speculate why. But she clearly lived a full life and we can see a lot of iconic moments through the eyes she wore there.

It’s hard not to begin thinking about what someone thought of art, and creating, and sharing with others, when all their work is posthumous.

As such the dilemma prevails.

If a tree falls far deeply into a forest, does it make a noise?

For us, it’s a bit disingenuous to ask others to make art “for the love of art” when we are utterly at a loss on what to do.

For many people it’s a matter of honing some skills, for others it is to build a community, for others it is enjoying the process of the craft itself.

All of those views are valid, but it certainly is hard to see those as valuable as someone with average skill, having done their craft a thousand times for decades, and whose community and audience is nil.

On the other hand, it seems to be a growing anti-artistry movement around the world. There’s a lot of facets about it but there’s one we want to point out to, that is not talked much about and it is closer to us.

The demoscene.

Started by a bunch of teens nearly 40 years ago, it seems the attitude has not gotten any worse, if anything, it feels like it strays further and further away of what is art.

So many demos out there have became exclusively about the technical merit. Despite the fact there are more low end phones and single board computers than C64 and Amigas ever produced.

The unwavering focus on the technical merit while sacrificing aesthetics, or, god forbid. Stories, Feeling. Emotion.

You see an endless machine of people copying one another, rotated the most efficient n-gons you have ever parsed, bouncing the light the fastest you’ve ever perceived, shrunk down to sizes that would make your L1 cache blush.

And… that’s just it. It’s the same thing we’ve seen for decades now.

And then someone came with the idea of making a few story demos, and got ostracised and driven off to exile, for not pushing the boundaries, for being slideshows. For being uninspiring.

Uninspiring would be the last word we would have ever, ever used. Sure, the story might have been about the struggles of falling in love, or an artists’ representation of a high fever. But an attempt was made at say something, evoke some feelings. And that’s uninspiring.

So much of modern demoscene feels like: “Oh here’s ten thousand sprites, now have some pre-baked vector animations because it’s been in vogue for over a decade now. Oh here comes the part with the 5bpp static image. Riveting stuff. Please give us praise.” And praise do they get. In spades.

Saying that is not true art is a disservice, but it appears clout chasing has became their sole priority. Maybe that is what they want to be remembered forever for. We cannot judge. Their algorithms, once dissected, are precious, immaculate. But in an age of machines constantly spewing out code for the sake of spewing out code… somehow, it feels wrong. Specially when that is seemingly the only thing valued.

Perhaps it is time to splinter off the scene and pursue our non-interactive computer-aided storytelling by other means. It does not make sense to bring bad blood over disagreements on what constitutes art. But it sure is sad to see.

Understandably, this post might read as “Advice I sell, for which I own none”, but, if there is a way to bookend this document. It is by saying that. Even if you are trying to get into the arts for clout. You should get into the arts. But you should do it yourself, by your own means. Draw that shitpost, mashup those songs, arrange that mixtape, create that raytracer renderer.

Maybe, in time, you will figure there’s a story for you to tell, a song to fill our hearts with, a game for us to enjoy, a character we may want to hug.

The thing about ironic performance is that, more often than not, it is not ironic at all. You will find your own way in earnest, and the world will better be off for it. So long you are doing this without harm implied, even if it’s for a bit, you will realize how deep things can go.

We did YTPMVs for a bit, designed our first furry character for a bit, wrote our first few lines of code for a bit, did our first pixel art out of spite… And here we are. There’s nothing for you to see, but all those things led us to fundamental paths that changed our life.