Art or Utility?

Ask any full time touring musician which is truer; the dull grind of every airport they’ve wasted countless hours in monotonous transit, or the electricity and eruption of a deafening crowd half way around the world, anticipating the most popular song in their discography that’s about to be performed during an encore in its most frictionless state. 

Which moment is truer? I can tell you with certainty which moment is more frequent for a touring musician. That it would frighten you if it were given a ratio of time spent between the two activities. And this is particularly true for Australian musicians who’s distance of travel to service a fan in London, or Mexico City, is so great that that it could be considered an environmental sin.  

And of course, the question is futile; both activities are equally true. However the shine and gloss of one simply out way the dirt and grime of the other. 

Like in all creative pursuits, once they intend on being vocations, there is an invisible spectrum that artists exist in; art to utility. 

What do I mean by this? Well, the extremes of this spectrum could define high-art in its insistence of superiority, on innovation above comfort and above all - its distance from utility. Whereas utility argues for its existence in more commonplace and practice ways, such as background music at shopping malls or events, singing you happy birthday and the dreaded cover of the song being belted out at a drunken bar, anywhere the globe over, local time, somewhere between midnight and sunrise. 

Yet, still, the distinction is not clear. Because they are intertwined. Indeed, at some point that cover song once held itself as high art and it has sunken to the lows of utility. Equally true, in the shopping mall there will be a brilliant new release, masterfully constructed by the world’s most brilliant people, being played at such a minimal volume that its value will be reduced down to its influence over its environment, much like that of the air conditioning or the grade of lighting. So, if one doesn’t exist without the other, why bother pointing out the spectrum in the first place? What value could that possibly have? When this pandemic’s impact is over, why not let the unrefined covers musician return to playing Darryl Braithwaite ‘The Horses’ and have ‘I OH YOU’ pretentious brand of progressive high-art record label sell you the next Triple J dream on a platter? Because, both have been wrong about each other. Neither is right and both are flawed. Or more accurately - their modus operandi is incomplete. 

In-order to improvise, all you need is two options.

In days gone by, the only line in the sand you needed to draw to say, ‘you’ve made it’ as a artist is that your practice is sustaining you. That being, you’re no longer ‘working for the man’.  You’re working for yourself, or for a full-time operation that directly serves the industry you’ve pledged your identity and allegiance to. And that’s the best measure we’ve had. It’s an interesting yard stick. And a very important one to take note of. I’d encourage you to consider someone you know who is working full time within the arts and challenge if they’d consider it differently. Did they feel that they’d made it any sooner? I know all artists still feel like they haven’t made it, like, it’s a pursuit. We get it. But a frank conversation with their land lord or bank manager would reveal a harsher reality, one of fiscal truths void of artistic romanticism. 

I’d argue this measure of our artists is destructive and soon enough will be considered archaic. The idea that someone needs to be full time in order to be ‘living the dream’, or a professional tier artist is beyond me. I’d argue the opposite. The removal from day to day societal life, reduces the potency of your work. The hunger to change what is in your immediate world, should cause you to create. Rather, our current output is all set against the celebratisation of art. 

It’s unclear to me why these line of thinking aren’t clearer to the artists and industry alike. It’s as if the artistic community conveniently ducks in and out of the capitalistic societies they create from – just as it serves them. We’ll champion environmentalism, as long as we can still fly to remote corners of the globe. Or stop exploiting our communities most vulnerable, but then blame market forces and prevent new structures from paying artists what they’re worth. You can identify as an artist and create outputs, but until the metrics of your outputs represent that of a fully-fledged operation, one worthy of commercial investment – just stick at it. You’ll get there. Try and catch the carrot on a stick. The industry has a lot to be accountable for and its hypocrisy might finally have a mirror held to its face while it’s got nothing else to do. 

However, when it comes to applying capitalist thinking to the structure of you as an artists, you still think that the absence of ‘sucking the corporate cock’ is sufficient to place a flag on the figurative moon and proclaim – ‘I’ve made it’. Rather, the capitalist system you’re begging for the attention of, if you rise to it, would expect you to say - if its doctrine had a voice - “you haven’t made it until your time isn’t making someone else money”. Which you never hear and you never rise to, all the while the capitalist industry holds that against you in plain sight. 

This impossible dance is exhausting. Both for the industry, who is struggling to pay rent and gain meaningful market share, and for the artists - who’s work is slowly being shaped in such a way that that its formed to serve the inlets of the industry more than it is to celebrate and critique the world it is being released into. 

The Art of Utility. 

There is a profound metaphor for which I fast tracked my thinking in this direction. The Thermometer and the Thermostat. One sets the temperature (high-art), the other adjusts accordingly to the rooms temperature (utility). They both have roles to play at different moments and I believe a truly skilled artist, one that you should inspire to be, can do both. 

It has been interesting to me over the last 5 or so years, as I have retreated into performing as a drummer almost only within the realm of the QLD’s corporate circle. The first and most notable fact about this is how little respect the ‘real’ Australian music industry offers this pursuit. As if it is void of meaning and a loss of artistic integrity. Devolving the true art form, for which touring and releasing apparently has in spades. However, I’ve never found a better platform to refine my skills as a musician, be paid my worth, up-skill my interaction with properly budgeted production and facilities, collide with ideas outside of my echo-chamber and all the while investing the excess in my creative pursuits. It’s been an interesting thing to notice, that the one thing that has serviced my creative pursuit best, has been music practiced as a utility, or better put - as a thermometer. It’s true, I’ve played for mining company events. I’ve played for superannuation companies events, who primarily invest in mining companies. I’ve also played weddings for strangers who have softened my heart. Either way, I haven’t known how I’ve felt about mining companies or if I love love. But I do see my role as an artist to suspend pre-determinism. Maybe it’s true, you’re just a better human being than me. But again, I’d like to see your music career happen without a plane. In fact, now is a great moment for you to explore that. Either way, I have seen being close to systems that I want to change as a good thing, opposed to pushing them further away. 

There has always been a distance between these two worlds, and there should be tension, like that of two north poled magnets. Part of your job as an artist is bare the weight of pushing them towards one another, not simply giving into their attempt to escape the predicament. 

The past month has been a public struggle for artists who existed in high-art to make sense of the current, tour-less, moneyless world they find themselves in. The harsh exposure has been -  what role is your music serving in the world and why are you, as a person - an authority on that. If as an artist, you don’t have response to that question - you aren’t essential. 

If you do, you can be a leader. But you’ll never be in this league if you’re first response has needed to be ‘adapt to the current climate’. Because the artists who are ready to lead won’t need to change. They were already formed long ago and have enough in their tank to weather change. They’ve also thought enough about what needs changing about the world and are smart enough to realise this moment is the ripest our world has been to influence structures that oppress our worlds vulnerable – more than any other time on the planets living memory. This is because they are closer to their community, because they’ll have kept their thermometer with them, especially as the virus has set now set the global temperature. 

Who have you seen operate within ‘high-art’ quickly reduce this status to ‘taking requests’? This could be seen as the epitome of utility within art. However, this desperation is understandable. After all, we are on the brink of a world-wide depression. 

It’s more likely that they have shaped their art to fit the inlet of the industry, not to the world for which they’re drawn to create on behalf of. Which is now our collective responsibility to correct and the industries to make way for.  

I am aware how wide I have cast this net. And it’s brutally heavy. 

I propose that what you need is conviction in your art and practicality in your utility. That’s what defines you as an artist. Not if you have been given approval by your respective industry, nor if you are ‘full time’. You’ve ‘made it’ when you escaped the celebratisation of your art by seeking humble ways to earn a living and those activities empower your artistic integrity. 

It’s precisely because both ends of the spectrum lack one another that it’s left art speechless, just when we needed it to have a voice. How can you start to hold the magnets closer together?

Michael McCartney Copyright 2020