The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Three - Your art has the potential…

by NDK Creative Artist

Do we, as Creative Artists, have any responsibility for what we communicate to others in and through our work? There are numerous examples of how people are influenced by works of literature and entertainment, with gaming perhaps one of the most controversial. The author Trevanian, wrote in Shibumi (a spy-martial arts thriller) of the technique of Naked/Kill and also a theft and after the book was published copycat methods of descriptions he gave were found to have influenced real world crimes. As a result of these events Trevanian decided not to give full details of method and called this “social responsibility.” There are other examples from the age of television and movies that have also inspired crime and other behavior. In this third of the Code Point Articles, NDK Creative Artist addresses the power Creative Artists have to influence society and offers us a more detailed explanation.. — Joel Falconer, Editor-in-Chief

Your art has the potential to influence and change an individual’s life and society’s progress. That change can be constructive or destructive and this is dependent on the effect you wish to create with what you communicate. A Creative Artist’s responsibility is large because he or she can reach many people at one time and effect powerful change in a very short period. If you intend to destroy something, then what you wish to destroy should warrant destruction and improve the quality of life by its demise. Constantly seek enlightenment and improvement in the quality of life for all. Be culturally responsible. Produce only those products which will enhance today’s or create tomorrow’s reality by improving the quality of life.

The works of creative culture have a one-to-many relationship, which is to say from artist (one) to public (many). This is really about the creation of Valuable Final Effects (VFE). Most artists have this in mind when they create and you can see it in much of the work that people have created that has become popular, and also works that have not. The intentions of creative individuals are, almost universally, good. Which doesn’t mean they aren’t human. The mediums of communication today, until the advent of the internet have embodied and epitomized this relationship, actively creating a shared experience, which it is doubtful that the internet can embrace and include in the same way. This has those who have utilized the power of broadcast media to influence people very concerned, for it loosens their hold on attention. The public audience is fracturing, becoming smaller and this has its pros and cons. It means that the merits of works of art & entertainment need to be more clearly understood so as to make the marketing of them, better. Refer to the explanation on Point 2 of the Code of a Creative Artist.

Control of broadcast distrbution channels aside for the moment (we’ll consider this in other articles at other times and most particularly when it comes to internet marketing), it is valuable to consider the effect of your communication upon others whether that is written, spoken, or through one of the creative disciplines, and this point in particular deals with the power of works of communication to shift viewpoint from where it was to other places where entirely different understandings have taken place.

The real product of a work of the intellect is in…

A lot of people consider that a work of art and/or entertainment is a product when they hold the CD, the book, the poem or picture in their hand. This is a fallacy. Such physical material-universe-works obscure (and this is particular to materialistic cultures) the real product of a work of the intellect. The real product of a work of the intellect is in the intellect, it is as intangible as the work itself is when it exists only in the mind. The real product is the effect the work creates in the mind, heart, and life of another person. The book, the CD, the DVD, the image in its frame hanging on the wall, these are simply a sub-product the final step of communication–transfer of an idea (or feeling)–from the original medium, the author’s mind, to the recipient medium, every other mind that is ever exposed to the work.

Peter Benchley spent the better part of his latter life working to undo the effects of his story Jaws, upon humanity and the shark species who were post-release of Jaws pretty much decimated all around the world, to the very point of extinction. It is to his credit that he made such an effort, but had he considered the potential of the effect of his story upon the world he may never have felt responsible for making mankind so fearful that they took it upon themselves to hunt them down and to all intents and puruposes wipe the Great White (and other sharks) out.

Trevanian, another author, described in detail how to carry out a crime. That crime was later carried out by a reader who used the exact detailed description and had the book carefully marked.

When the consequences are potentially inimical to life…

The point is: ideas are powerful. In any medium, song, painting, photograph, film, or literary work they change the way people think about things and they lead to actions and thus to consequences. Therefore the ideas you communicate and how you communicate them, require a great deal of, and not just passing consideration about their potential effect on society. Mankind does not have, despite his much-vaunted intellect, a very good intellectual record when it comes to the consideration of consequences, and even in the face of such consideration, can still make the wrong choice and decision. It is a risk. But when the consequences are potentially inimical to life, then one needs to consider more deeply what is going on, and what the possible effects are going to be.

America, during its imperialist phase, held sway over the world economically, militarily and culturally for much of the bloodiest century in mankind’s history, and it used its works of culture to dominate and disseminate ideas that Americanized much of the Western world, while simultaneously blinding the world to its imperial designs. The mythology America used to achieve this justified genocide with works such as the western, a film genre that characterized an entire race as savages, when the true savagery was how the colonists of America, used the foulest of means to wipe out Native Americans and their culture. To my way of thinking this and other such ideas and ideals the American creative industry has forwarded are a disservice to the very spirit of creativity, a spirit that should embrace the world and all of humanity to a much higher degree than America chose to do over the course of the last century. American ideals, were very powerful principles, they still are and always will be the sort of thinking that inspires mankind in what I believe are important directions for the development of civilization and the cause of freedom. The founding principles of democracy lie at the heart of Allforart and the Free Articulator and, as I’ve said elsewhere, are predicated upon the idea of freedom of creative expression. However, America, has proven itself to be incapable of holding to such ideals, and nowhere has this been more clear than in the last six years of the badministration of the Bush-era U.S. Corporatrocracy, where the corruption of American ideals and the inability of its people to uphold them has become completely and shamefully evident. At this time, as I write, I believe the torch of freedom has passed from American hands, and is now floundering in the world held by none as precious, and perhaps, though I hope not, about to be extinguished as a result of our lack of application of our intellect. But more of this in my State of Our Culture and Civilization series of articles.

The consequences of those ideas that set the industrial revolution moving relentlessly forward are obvious and equally obvious is the conclusion…

All creators, and not just in the field of the arts, know their creations have potential, it is realizing that potential that is the harder part of the task of working in the creative industries, or so it appears to be, at the moment. Rutherford, the scientist who cracked the atom, did not perhaps consider the use that Americans, Russians, French, Koreans, Britons, Chinese, India, Pakistan and others would put this achievement to. But it is the potential of ideas that has to be considered long and in depth, so that the work may be adjusted to counteract those adverse effects that otherwise have potential to raise their heads as the specter, or dark side of consequence. In the world of consumption that has been created by humanity today, the pressure to rush to market is immense, but that is really a part of the insanity of a civilization which is consuming its own home while simultaneousy trashing it and turning it into a place unfit for habitation by life. The consequences of those ideas that set the industrial revolution moving relentlessly forward are obvious and equally obvious is the conclusion that those ideas are flawed and need some serious and immediate revision. [Editor's Note: Gordon Jackman, archeologist, anthropologist and former Chairman of Greenpeace NZ, and NDK Creative Artist, are currently preparing an article for publication that explores how the arts were instrumental in forwarding these very ideas--subscribe to be notified when this article will be appearing in the Free Articulator.]

This third point is…central to the very idea of being a Creative Artist

Your art has the potential…is a phrase that leads to asking the question and considering well, what potential it has for construction, for destruction, for the advance or decline of humanity. Will it become a propaganda piece for some ideology that ends up having imperial designs on the rest of humanity? Will it forward some ideology that pretends to have humanity at heart, but really seeks to enslave? Will your work serve some political agenda and not humanity as when Goebbels utilized the art & entertainment industry to create a circumstance by which an entire nation tacitly agreed to the murder of 6,000,000 human beings? Though all the points are a part of the whole, and work together, this third point is one of the most important in the Code of a Creative Artist. It’s central to the very idea of being a Creative Artist, who is not an artist at all, in the general sense of the word as we are used to using it. An ‘artist’ rushes to production intent on fame, fortune, bling, status, and power. Creative Artists do not; their works and their considerations are directed at the advance of civilization beyond the trappings of mere technology to the deeply human matters, that make being a human being something to be proud of, rather than something to be ashamed of. It is not material gain alone that Creative Artists seek. Creative Artists enhance society, and that sums the considerations that they engage themselves upon as they create what they create.

Consider then the consequences of creativity

Consider then the consequences of creativity, for you define and create the potential of your art and it is your responsibility to get it right so that humanity survives better than when you entered upon the stage of their consciousness.

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If you'd rather we did all the hard work, you're in luck. Here's a list of articles that are related to this one:

• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Zero - There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to creativity
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Thirteen - No one ever said you have to agree
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Fourteen - Creating Ideal Scenes
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Nineteen - Observe and confront life
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Two - Communicate only that which you truly know about in your art.