Ever since humans could put their thoughts down using written representations they have been wrestling with the idea of art.
We, as organisms, have the ability to reflect on our world and lives and express ourselves. It's a natural state, it just happens. Art represents the many ways we communicate these ideas to others.
Once we were living in large enough communities several issues came up. One biggie is art in the service of power. Like propaganda. Some fellow coined the phrase the pen is mightier than the sword.
Another issue is art used to sell things, or the intersection of art and commerce. This is especially relevant today as we live in a global consumer age and the people who run it have the power.
This is nothing new or controversial.
Talking about this shouldn't bring up shock, panic or defensive behavior. But ...
I find that when I bring this idea up, especially in relation to the actions of PR and advertising companies in arts communities, it causes a lot of fuss - predictably, from people within the advertising/PR community themselves.
One rebuttal I often hear is that 'selling out' is a dated concept and there's nothing wrong with making money from your work. I've heard that phrase many times before. Growing up a die hard music fan you always hear something like "Oh, so and so, has really sold out." It appeared to be a negative term equating money with a decline in the quality of the art. However, that original rebuttal is confused and I just want to break it up a little.
Let's say there's a band. They write an album of songs and they put it on the net at their website for free download with a donations button. People love it and donate loads of money, they also play shows and people happily fork out cash for their excellent performance. Finally they become quite rich from this.
Some people refer to this as selling out. Just the act of making money at all. However it is clearly not what we talk about when we bring up the effect of advertising and PR work in the arts. These are all differing concepts with thematic overlap.
There is another concern that I heard. When artists become affluent, even through legitimate means, the change in lifestyle may result in the edge the material used to have disappearing. Sometimes I heard people refer to this as selling out too. But it's clearly different from the other examples.
Also, some people say that if a band starts with the goal of getting rich, they will choose certain songs and styles that pander to the power mongers of the art markets. The whole process is then 'selling out'.
Now, say a band puts themselves about as an indie band or whatever. They then get approached to create a song or video that will be used to advertise a product. Maybe even just appear in an ad to lend the product their fame and endorsement or credibility. The band do this and get paid for it. This is also called selling out, the idea being that the art can now not be trusted to be pure expression coming from the artist as they are a spokesperson for that company now.
This is what we are concerned with.
Philosophically, as soon as you take money to advertise something you can no longer be trusted as an independent voice. Once you cross the line, thats it. You trade in your integrity. You can still be considered an artist but you can no longer be considered independent.
This is an obvious affront to fans who come to music as a sub-culture in which they can explore ideas, identity and belong to as a group.
Outside of the waves of ideology though, most sane people can sense these things naturally. If your face or your work is plastered all over a Pepsi ad, they are not going to take your work seriously.
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Thanks for the blog.Thanks Again. Will read on...