the power of art, intention and consequence

I like my work to be entertaining, being entertaining is a force that often drives my writing. Creating work for performance, particularly in the audience led world of poetry slam, means a lot of thought and consideration goes to the reception to your work, to what others think. This is very critical as far as comic work is concerned. If you write something to amuse, and it fails to amuse anyone other than yourself, you go back to writing it again..

Now, moving cities has made me go into one of my existential "what does it all mean" states.


I've been asking myself a number of questions: What is the art I am making? What are my themes? Why do I care about them? and perhaps most importantly, Why make art anyway?


There is a danger as a performer, of falling into a trap of writing what audiences want, or more dangerously, what you you think they want. There is a balancing act between going outside of yourself enough to escape self indulgence, while expanding the audience perception of what they are ready for. When you really nail it, you can change the way people think. This is one of the most exciting aspects of making work, and a difficult thing to achieve.

Recently I've come across an artist who has been successful in doing exactly that. His name is Mike Daisey. I've been making more use of my twitter account lately, and a post by beardyman led me to this podcast. I was utterly captivated by this twenty minute excerpt. His story and the telling of it moved me, enough that I became deeply interested not only in him and his play, but in the responses they generated.

This piece of theatre, adapted for radio, instigated a level of investigation in working conditions he encounters, that had thus far had little coverage in the mainstream press. This was not new news. I have a friend who is a political activist, who told me that many things, such as the matter of the suicide nets had been written up on socialist websites years ago.

What made it news now, what generated an outpour of interest, was a story, and the performance of it. The story and the art of storytelling, had humanized the issue for the public. A public who had been unaware, but now cared and wanted answers. What had instigated all this? A piece of theatre. Yes I thought, art has power.



I have since gotten hold of a number of recorded monologues by mike daisey, and seen video clips. Unfortunately being so far away from New York, I can not see him perform. But from what I've heard, the excerpt from his new show is the most powerful. And I don't think it is only because it is his most recent, and thus from the top of his form.

I think it is partly to do with him having a sense of responsibility to deliver a message. A sense of responsibility, not just as an artist, but as a human who has compassion for other humans. His talents as an artist just serve to better deliver the message. Once again, art has power.

As artists, particularly struggling and emerging ones, this is easy to forget. What you put out there has weight. This doesn't mean everything you put out has to be weighty, but maybe it is worth it every so often, to not just think about what you want to say, but about the affect that saying it, has on others.

Ages ago, I can't remember when, I kept hearing rumblings on the internet about a rap collective called odd future. I like to get in on music people like to rumble about. I like being an early adopter of new sounds. But the problem with odd future was, every time I saw a comment about them being the most exciting avant garde group in hiphop, it would be coupled with a footnote saying they were really overtly homophobic and misogynistic.

I love hip hop, and there may be a lot of it that is both, but i don't listen to that. I can just about tune out the n word and overuse of the word bitch (but hey even girl mc's i like drop that) but when lyrics sink into rape fantasies and and musings on killing f**gots I have to draw the line.

This is why, as much as I appreciate he has a great flow, I have never and can never buy an album by eminem. Yes I get that there is a character, that many lyrics are meant to shock, are not sincere. Odd future may be similar. It is notable that only press comment to ever have offended Tyler the creator is being called a homophobe. But I'm not sure how that makes it better. Spout enough that is hateful, and you have the power to incite hatred. Art has power.

I have said before that I am only responsible for what i say, not for what you understand. I still think there is some truth in that, but I now think a little thought as to how something could be understood, never hurts . In any case I was happy to ignore odd future, even when in the summer I felt their empire building, when tyler the creator got signed. The reveiws still didnt' make me excited about the music.

Then there were new rumblings about the impossible to google group
the internet



they were an odd future off shoot made up of producer matt martians, and the crew's only girl member syd the kid. I had so avidly avoided the hype about odd future, that I had never noticed they had a female member. How did that rhyme with all the misogyny in their lyrics? Before i could question that further , I read on to see she was an out lesbian. What?? In hip hop? Any debate about the fact was apparently settled by their latest video. which due to gema I couldn['t play.

Until now Syd the kid has happily been in the background of Odd future.

Now in a very short period of time she had become the subject of scrutiny not just because of fame, but for being the lone female in an all male crew, and lesbian. But these facts also piqued my interest, so I am guilty of the same. More importantly, she is a talented beatmaker, engineer and singer, who is very clear on the music she wants to make. She takes her craft seriously. Interestingly, after the live performance debacle of Lana Del Rey, all questions about when the internet will tour have been met with this reply from Syd: after I get more vocal training.

And autotune or not, it has to be said, this girl's voice is something else..



I fell in love with their sound. Pychadelic soul they call it, and it fits. Although just for fun I'd describe it as Sade and Aaliyah making out to the Neptunes. So a week ago I bought the album, and I've been listening to it pretty constantly ever since. Reviews have been mixed, and every one I read was taken aback by this video I couldn't' see. I stumbled across a blog that suggested it had angered some of the queer community. I wanted to make up my own mind, so i finally tracked it down.

Internet (OFWGKTA) "Cocaine" Music Video Dir by Matt Alonzo from Matt Alonzo on Vimeo.

Ok... I don't completely agree with the blogger at after ellen. I'm mystified by her presuming the "intended audience are obviously men." ???? I can see that the intention of the internet is clearly meant to make taking drugs look bad. No one could watch this and want a line of coke. From reading Syd's tumblr it's clear that promoting use of drugs or negative portrayal of gay women is not her intent. By making her character in the narrative a girl who likes girls, she is attempting something like empowerment. But then there is a power to visual media that can be underestimated, when the failure of intention can become problematic.

I think in the passion to show an out gay character, and to pass on the message that drugs are bad, other signals have been lost in the mix. Like the fact that the syd character in the video with all her cool swagger, cooly discards women. Sure the point is that the other girl takes a risk and faces the consequence. The track is dark enough to underline the message. But then at the end syd gets away unscathed. And as much as I love her talent and sound and look, It does irk me that her, being more boyish, more conventionally lesbian in appearance, is the one shown discarding a woman in this way.

Of course queer people can be just as mean and messed up as anyone else. It would be stupid to say we are saints. But maybe part of why the video has caused such a furor, is when there is so little queer representation in media, what little there is, people want to be positive. But if there was more representation in the media in the first place, there wouldn't be so much pressure on what there is to be representative for all. You can't ever represent for all.

For the internet, who had full creative control of concept of the video, they may have thought that syd's character being queer in the video could be incidental. Unfortunately, another reading of the video says that women are disposable, and/or queer people are predatory and abusive.
I don't feel that seeing it, but I can understand how that can be an interpretation. I was most disturbed by comments on one site regarding the video: Syd got some swag!!!.

Odd future's answer to criticism has always been, our words are meaningless, you are stupid to take us seriously. Syd the kid has said the same. I guess she needs to feel that way in order to connect with them. But while it is true that the more you hear a word, the more you can be numb to it saying "It's your fault for taking us seriously" as a defense, is seriously lame.

Yes we as artists have a right to make work in our own way, with our own intentions. But as soon as we put that work into the ether, audiences and critics have a right to respond. Yes journalists can play cruel games of taking our words, and placing them in context otuside of our intentions, but as soon as we are interesting enough for journalists to take interest in us, as soon as we enter our work into the public realm, this is the game we play.

Internet (Odd Future) "Fastlane" from Matt Alonzo on Vimeo.

As artists we must not underestimate the power we have not only to entertain and engage, but to influence and affect change. So as I'm going all introspective, I'll be carrying forward into my work a new sense of care about my themes and their meaning. I will be much more aware of the power of and intentions behind my work, and the form that responsibility takes.