19 replies to this topic

[zook]

Look at us. Stop for a minute and look.

What are we? What are we doing?

We've become enslaved by the very technologies that were supposed to make our lives easier. We have lost our spirit of exploration, crushed under the tracks of the lumbering commercial behemoths to who sell us their bloated wares not for what it can do, but for what it does for them. We are less artists, more technicians. We are less technicians than revenue sources being increasingly entrained into one-sided upgrade cycles that demand a tithe of our income. We are the serfs, villeins and vassals helpless in the face of the might of the conqueror. We are being subjugated. We don't talk about art anymore, just about cloners and frame rates and all that clutter that fills our days with greyness and saps the joy from our soul.

Are we problem solvers, slaves or artists?

Art requires a certain degree of reflection. The creative process needs room to breathe, it needs to be able in inhale and exhale without constraint. It's moving too fast now. We're not in control anymore, the pressure to deliver exorcises the creative spirit and makes us soulless zombies, delivering to the clock. Look over your shoulder and see the hordes of mindless hacks and wannabes, bearing down on us. Their eyes are blazing red, lit with fires stoked by VideoCopilot. They can't draw.

Is there hope? The blue sky of Metacreations is long gone . . . that ship sailed many moons ago. The altar of Kai Krause lies desecrated by the hand of lesser corporations who stood on the shoulders of giants . . . and never delivered. Innovation is bound up in the redundant code of system software, the memory of which has faded beyond recall. Excitement is being exiled from the sphere mograph. Are we just regurgitating old tropes? Feeding the open maw of the demanding client because they scream loudly for "More, now!"

It's time for introspection, to look within and decide of this is what we really want. The inequity of corporate interest vs working artists is at the tipping point; it might well have passed.

It's time to venture into the undiscovered country. It has to happen.

[levante]

Can this be done in After Effects?

[jens]

Can this be done in After Effects?

LIKE!

Heavy topic dude,
I can remember someone saying we are artist because we solve problems.
But I tend to think we stop being artist the moment we do something to get paid.
What's the problem with delivering to the client on time and creating art when you're free?

[symphonicx]

pah to "art"

If you're doing a job for a client, you are a designer.

If you're doing it for yourself, you're an artist.
Sure there are crossovers, some client initialised work can be classed as beautiful, artistic, expressive....

but to be honest you sound a bit bitter about the industry. I'm not going to profess to being an artist...I design things to a brief, set a style or an idealogy and watch the rest fall into place.

When you're approached by a client with a design brief, a logo, a style guide with RGB values and proportions and you're told to "animate this", you're just designing. When you're given a blank canvas, no logo, no proportions, nothing - well then you can apply this to art.

Working in broadcast, deadlines are always the henchman of failure. I work for a department that uses the same applications as another department - only they get three weeks to make a 10 second sting. I get 11 hours.

You could be cleaning the bloody streets - so it's not all bad. Christ we get to sit in front of computers, getting paid to stroke our chins and drink tea whilst asking "does this interact well with this?". God it's a great life, even if a little stressful.

[dan_hin]

I take it you're a MSA and CS6 subscription customer?

[este.eri]

bah....you are just stressed out because you probably underdelivered, overpromised or underestimated time/expectations, nothing has changed, it's always been like this. I know.

[Mylenium]

I don't do art, I do graphics of sorts. I solve problems for my clients, so their screens on tradeshows don't remain black and I don't pretend that anything I do would last more than the duration of the event or the next revision. Therefore I need software to get work done. Whether or not that in itself is limiting, is highly arguable. Sometimes even geeked out technical experiments can lead to creative exploration...

Mylenium

[vozzz]

The beauty of being an artist nowdays, is that all you have to be an artist, is say that you are an artist.

I am an artist.

Ta-da. =) I dont even to style boards. im just a TD on most of my jobs. Yet i still consider myself an artist and therefore I am. You can argue, deny it, but to me it doesnt matter, because unlike other proffesions, i dont need any proof. I just need to be.

If you dont think you are an artist any longer, than you are not. its just as easy to fall out as it is to get in.

You can work in a cubicle doing data entry and be an artist. If you consider your life to be a tribute to the minimum wage work force =)

[eliss]

Bro. I think you need a new job. You're sounding like you just came back from a payote trip.

[AromaKat]

You're sounding like you just came back from a payote trip.

awesome

[vozzz]

had to google it...

[zook]

Interesting. See, I'm quite comfortable in my job. I'm not unduly stressed, haven't under delivered etc etc (not for a long while anyway) and peyote is not freely available on my manor. Just been chewing the fat with some other graphic designer buddies and wondering whither lies the future. Always in motion is the future. Is there any craft left in what we do?

Cleaning the streets is a far more important job than this, whether it has the social standing because people sneer at street cleaners or a low pay grade is, in reality, irrelevant. It makes the world a better place to live in. It contributes to the wee-being of society. It's for the common good.

I don't think this can be done in After Affects, at least not with the standard toolset. Perhaps someone should write a tutorial?

[vozzz]

Cleaning the streets is a far more important job than this, whether it has the social standing because people sneer at street cleaners or a low pay grade is, in reality, irrelevant. It makes the world a better place to live in. It contributes to the wee-being of society. It's for the common good.

So true. It makes me feel so shitty, when I see people who are doing something actually useful get paid so much less than what we get for making shiny shit jump around.

Im starting to think that this free market thing is kinda flawed. Why is it somethings worth is determined by its scarcity rather than by its benefit to society? ( rhetorical question, I know why, and i can explain it). But what's the alternative? Communism doesn't seem to function to well either...

[zook]

Unregulated free markets are flawed. They are incapable of self-regulation and that's not good for a society as a whole. No growth can be infinite. Resources are finite.

Social responsibility. Mutual respect. Tolerance. A love of our planet and all the beings we share it with. Beer (dispose of can responsibly). None of these threaten the individual.

[mshadis]

I love what I do. I love communication and am very satisfied that I can make a good living for myself and my family doing something I'm passionate about. There is nothing wrong with making an honest living, no matter what it is you are doing.

I don't just make shiny stuff jump around. I help realize a clients vision. I help them accomplish their dreams and goals while satisfying my own. Design isn't about making stuff look cool or pretty, it's about making things that work.

My joy comes from the craft, not the content. That said I have no problem with market economies, etc. It seems like the only way to be free. My success is directly determined by how hard I work. It's simple and beautiful and this profession has allowed me to live my own life on my own terms.

Use your skill set to make art, then. Do it now. You can literally show anything you can imagine with the tools at your fingertips. You have more power and control to create a visual message than any other human has ever had at any other time in history.

[vozzz]

Im not arguing that this job isnt awesome, or that it doesnt give you freedom. It does and its awesome!. But when you see nurses, who actually take care of people, and to some extent save peoples lives, who only earn a fraction of what our industry earns. Makes me feel kinda crappy.

Especially when you consider the gap between countries as well. Eastern Europe, here nurses make around 8k a year if even that.

[AromaKat]

We get to toy with the science of the human psyche, constantly crafting a way to effectively inject the emotion and desire that would best benefit our clients' business goals into the viewers mind on a subconcious level.

We are part of a creative kohort behind what I see as the most powerful thing today - media.

Like ClearChannel, our job is to make people exposed to our works want whatever we tell them to want and leave them not knowing any better. Its not a tangeable result, but it is measurable.

If thats not the coolest job in the world to you, I vote you get the hell out of our kitchen and go do the dishes.

Edited by AromaKat, 08 April 2012 - 06:09 PM.

[vozzz]

Haha! well put...

[parallax]

The universe is indifferent.

[destro]

You can always do some pro bono work for a charity if you feel the need to do something for the greater good.
We are influence peddlers.