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Arboreocreativity And The Cult of Originality

Gabriela Syderas
28 min readMar 3, 2021

(Originally posted in portuguese on my wordpress , many thanks to my friend Laurel for helping me translate it and touch it up, as well as to all the friends and buddies who encouraged me to actually go through with this text)

“The tree and root inspire a sad image of thought that is forever imitating the multiple on the basis of a centered or segmented higher unity. If we consider the set, branches-roots, the trunk plays the role of opposed segment for one of the subsets running from bottom to top: this kind of segment is a “link dipole,” in contrast to the “unit dipoles’’ formed by spokes radiating from a single center.” Even if the links themselves proliferate, as in the radicle system, one can never get beyond the One-Two, and fake multiplicities. Regenerations, reproductions, returns, hydras, and medusas do not get us any further. Arborescent systems are hierarchical systems with centers of signifiance and subjectification, central automata like organized memories.”

The Great Deceleration

Lately, in my (finally fruitful) attempts to interact with the work of Deleuze & Guattari (I recently finished the first volume of A Thousand Plateaus), the concepts associated with multiplicity supported by D&G have occupied my thoughts in various aspects, specifically in their implications about art. At the same time, I noticed the American blogosphere (mainly people associated with the accelerationism movement) return to a critique of this same concept of multiplicities as being co-opted by neoliberalism. Fisher writes that “There’s no doubt that Deleuze encourages psychedelic fascism, if he isn’t actually guilty of it.”. Psychedelic fascism, in a definition adapted from Stanley Kubrick (and, in his original post in K-Punk, exemplified with the film Videodrome) is defined as as “the eye‐popping, multimedia, quadrasonic, drug‐oriented conditioning of human beings by other beings”. Xenogothic describes it as a kind of “cultural free-fall epitomised by hippie culture, which, at its worst, rather than going beyond the pleasure principle, gives into pleasure without any principles whatsoever.”. Basically, it is a concept intended to create tension in the cycle of cultural self-congratulation by which neo-liberalism is defined (“we are the greatest, the world has never been so good, so any disturbance in this status quo is to seek a return to uncertainty and imbalance “or,” don’t move on a winning team “).

Arguments can be made about how much Fisher, Land, or the accelerationist movement as a whole, understand Deleuze & Guattari (I’m not from the movement myself, I’m just communicating the opinions of friends more knowledgeable than me, and perhaps mixing in some of my own emotions while reading the authors connected to this position), but I believe that the core of the concept of psychedelic fascism is one that can be quite useful. It can be useful in conjunction with another Fisherian concept, that of “Experimental ™” (which is basically an abstraction of what is considered a “good” experiment within capitalist hierarchy, experiments that create new stories and traditions that, in turn, can be absorbed by the system in the form of reccuperation). Rather, there is an inherent tension in how neoliberalism uses art and the mediatic machines that distributes it to, if not explicitly telling political messages, guide the audience’s hips to certain conclusions. But, on the other hand, I believe that Fisher and consequently others in these circles abandon the humor and the “groove” that D&G’s texts have, and end up reinforcing those capitalist ideas that they criticize so much.

The main criticism of psychedelic fascism in conjunction with that of Experimental™ is that neoliberalism treats culture as a box of LEGOs, exclusively to be placed in the artist’s hands to be recombined, and and not to be anything else. It is a criticism that (in exemplary Fisherian fashion) can seem extremely general, cynical and aggressive (because it is); but digging deeper, has an angle of extreme interest. Yes, there is a tendency in post-90s pop culture towards revivals, mergers, and re-contextualizations (From the post-punk revival of The Strokes and Interpol to the revival of disco and synth funk that gave Daft Punk and Bruno Mars hits), things that are only contextually shocking. I think, for example, of the controversy that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” has generated; the more you think about it, the less sense it makes (have Miami Bass and its pornographic lyrics been erased from history?). In his text “Turning Nothings Into Somethings”, Phil Christman defines Fisher’s position as:

“Post-punk: not the loud, colorful, simple, proudly incompetent, and often nihilistic music known then and now as punk rock, but the strange and often foreboding music that came immediately after it, made by artists who occupied the space of possibility that punk had created by saying “No” to manners, taboos, and musical skill. Such artists — Joy Division, the Mekons, the Fall, the Raincoats, Wire — turned punk’s nothing into something, or many somethings.”

Again, I believe that there is room for criticism in this conception as far as the extent to which punk said “no” (in the words of Ellen Willis, punk “recognizes the 60s, instead of pretending that the decade never happened.” Much has to be said about punk as a revival movement in its own way) and the extent to which post-punk built something truly new (let’s not forget how influential Dub and Funk were for post-punk; why is the movement treated with a-recombinant uniquity?), but I genuinely believe that there is an extremely important discussion to be had regarding the concepts that Fisher works with. In a blog post by Zone Styx Travelcard that delved into a discussion with Fisher about Sonic Youth, Styx says that Fisher’s writings are “boldly counter-intuitive and funny — though coming from Mark, undoubtedly no joke”, and though i disagree with the takes themselves, i don’t think they are unusable. In a post about Alain Badiou, Xenogothic (and here I apologize for returning to him so many times, but besides being one of the best sources on modern Fisherian discourse, it’s just a blog that I like a lot) points to Bruno Bosteels’ introduction to the book The Adventure Of French Philosophy, which says that “one of this thinker’s greatest virtues — which to others might seem to be a defect, especially in his writing on other philosophers — lies in giving thought a decisive orientation by leading readers to the point where they must take a stand in one way or another. ”. And in the same way, I believe that Fisher is such a figure. No matter how many of his positions may irritate me, his main objective (to get the reader out of complacency) is almost always a success, even if it is in disagreement.

And just as Fisher often gave several of his critics an active voice in the discussion, I want to take a critical role with respect to his position (more Fisherian than Fisher, given how many people seem to want to distort the man’s thinking and take him to a diabolical and extremely dangerous limit).

To begin with, my criticism is not a new one; in fact, much of it comes from another proto-accelerationist blogger, Alex Williams. Known for his post “Against Hauntology (Giving Up The Ghost)” (a post that started a debate that eventually influenced Benjamin Noys to create the term “Accelerationism” in the first place), his blog (now only accessible by the Wayback Machine) is a treasure chest of arguments and problematics about hauntological concepts that influenced Fisher’s philosophy. A very interesting post from Williams is “The Vicissitudes of the Hardcore Continuum and the Great Deceleration”, a post that analyzes the “Hardcore Continuum”, a historical theory created by Simon Reynolds and often quoted by Fisher that sees a continuity in the urban electronic music of England in the 90s (jungle, UK garage, etc.), and that points to a slowdown of innovations in its development in the mid 2000s. Williams has an almost literal and materialist view of these musical innovations, seeing evolutions of musical genres and creative changes as sources of energy with the possibility of being exhausted. He points to this cultural slowdown as also being something natural, that all cultures undergo, and that the change is particularly palpable in modern times as culture had been changing so much faster in the 20th century. In Williams’ words:

“Rather than thinking it is the postmodern issue of “clotted influences” — a panoply of overly diverse and diffuse influential materials to draw upon leading to an incoherent output, as theorised by Reynolds — instead it is the very exhaustion of these materials which is at the core of cultural deceleration. For example, it is only possible for techno to absorb the hip-hop breakbeat ONCE, which initially gives rise to an immense new field of possible musical forms, but which over time become gradually worn out.”

Williams uses the term “De-temporalizing hypnosis” to describe this frustration, pointing out that accelerated musical evolution was an exception and not the norm (similarly to the accelerated evolution of technology in the 20th century with the discovery of hydrocarbon energy). What we are experiencing now would be the comedown of unruly and insane growth that we may never see again, not necessarily because of a moral or cultural failure, but simply because we no longer have the resources to explore.

I hope here that I have closed the moral conclusions that have to be made both from an audience or from “non-original” artists, since most of my argument has much more to do with the industry involved and the disappearance of a strong community in the world of Arts. I think Williams’ points (and how much they owe Fisher) are best explained by himself, so I highly recommend taking a look at his blog (Splintering Bone Ashes) on the Wayback Machine.

But, preambles aside, i want to get into the meat of the discussion. I felt that this context of where i stand in the “Hauntological debate” is useful to understanding my further positions.

Clone Saga

I don’t want to be misunderstood in the following arguments. Unlike Fisher, I have no interest in being inflammatory or controversial, or martyring myself for the greater good. I like to consume art, make art and think about it: that’s all. And in any case, flame wars and controversies would be the antithesis of the point I want to make. So, here we go:

I believe there is a cult of the concept of originality, of the unique, of the innovative; and that this is (if not the creation, certainly a) fuel the neo-liberal machine with which we struggle as much as being “ generic” (and thus, not innovative).

To explain this position, I will turn to an artist who, like Fisher, is controversial on several levels but still extremely interesting in the discussions he raises: Martin Scorsese. Personally, I am a huge fan of many of the director’s works, of his sense of humor that matches so well with the intensity of his narratives. Even movies that are…let’s say, “problematic”, like Casino, I believe have incomparable energy. The Irishman was not only one of my favorite movies of 2019, but maybe one of my favorite movies, period. So I have no risk of running out of kind words about this man’s work. Now, from criticism, I may run out of them because I have some.

During the controversy over his criticism of superhero films, I was firmly in the opposite camp to him (I understood what he meant, I may even have had some sympathy for his position, but I believe the somewhat recurrent use of the phrase “real cinema” goes against the philosophies his own career, in wanting to for example use the gangster film format, a genre not taken very seriously before films like The Godfather, but of which Scorsese is a big fan). Scorsese’s arguments in the realm of cinema mirror Alan Moore’s arguments about comics, and in both cases, as much as I am a big fan of their work, their positions were ones that I could not support, at least not in the way expressed. In a series of tweets by Leah Moore, she points out how Alan Moore’s comments were fueled by a bitterness that came from decades being used and disliked by the comic book industry, leading him to not even want to have contact with the modern comics that could change that opinion. As for Scorcese, I believe that he took a similar path of ignorance(and if not ignorance, an unfortunate choice of words that reveals misguided optics). And on a certain level, let’s face it, the man is 78 years old. He has the right to be an old man swinging his cane against young people in the yard, I believe.

But, I think his questionable positions were completely justified in his controversial new essay, Il Maestro, in honor of Federico Fellini. I genuinely believe that this essay raises critiques and encourages discussions that are extremely necessary at the present, and this time I find myself almost entirely on the side of Scorsese and against his staunch critics, who take the side of cultural products such as the MCU and the like (to relieve my own conscience, my opinion of the MCU is: they are good, fun, and often interesting films, but at the same time don’t have the excitement and creativity that you find in comics. I’m a fan of comics, and consequently an MCU fan, but I would not consider myself a fan on the same level. I think The Irishman is better than any superhero film made to date).

Among the many great passages in the essay, I would like to focus on some that relate to the act of curating. Scorsese says:

“Curating isn’t undemocratic or “elitist,” a term that is now used so often that it’s become meaningless. It’s an act of generosity — you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. (The best streaming platforms, such as the Criterion Channel and MUBI and traditional outlets such as TCM, are based on curating — they’re actually curated.) Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else.”.

Speaking on the creation of New Yorker Films (founded to distribute the film Before the Revolution by Bernardo Bertolucci, a dangerous bet as Scorsese points out), he says that “The circumstances of that moment are gone forever, from the primacy of the theatrical experience to the shared excitement over the possibilities of cinema. ”. That last sentence is one that reverberated in my mind for a few days, and is genuinely one that I believe I will return to over and over again in my research, especially in its clamor for a communal experience of cinema (both in watching films together, in the cinemas, and also in the type of community that curatorship can create). I feel it’s a modern version of Victor Hugo’s “this will kill that. The book Will Kill the edifice’’, a shocking phrase that laments the death of architecture as the true common language of a people (in an era where general literacy was just beginning). In his text “War against the Demolitionists!” , Hugo lambasts the French state and the revolutionaries for not having an interest in maintaining buildings such as churches, dungeons, and spaces of the type. He says that “There is nothing less interesting among us than these sublime buildings made by people for people”. One of the effects of this lack of interest was the destruction of Notre Dame cathedral by the Cult of Reason, an atheist state delegation created after the French revolution, which organized the “Fête de la Raison”, parties that celebrated the coming of the new French state (and, in the process, destroying part of the cathedral’s structure.)

And although in retrospect, humanity has managed to survive with these new forms of culture (both in books, and subsequently in cinema, in TV series, etc.), Victor Hugo’s lamentations are mirrored in Scorsese’s lamentations. While his criticisms of the new conception of cinema as content may sound alarmist (as, in retrospect, treating the book as a format that will destroy civilization may seem), there are striking points of interest in Scorsese’s analysis. Content (or a product, if we are going to translate it into business terms as Scorsese claims to be) is something with a utility, something with a function, a purpose. When you buy a kitchen knife, you want to cut food with it. When you buy a chair, you want to sit on it. So, as they are things with functions, they have skills to be fulfilled and, eventually, advertised. A knife will never be sold if advertised as dull, just as a chair will not be sold if called wobbly. You expect something from the content of the product, and no one wants to disrespect that when producing it. And the algorithm model (like a shrewd marketer) turns cinema (and, ultimately, art) into something with the same end. Speaking of streaming services, Scorsese says:

“On the one hand, this has been good for filmmakers, myself included. On the other hand, it has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn’t. If further viewing is “suggested” by algorithms based on what you’ve already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema? ”

These phrases may sound like a criticism of“ generic”, but looking carefully (and in conjunction with the aforementioned paragraph on curation), you will realize that this is not the case. The algorithm (in contrast to the community created by curators) creates an increasingly individualized cinematic experience, literally handcrafted so as not to let you leave your comfort zone. And while that may not be the end of the world either (I know I have some albums that I quite like almost exclusively for simulating a sound that I love very much; comfort is not something that should be opposed at all times), there is dangerous kind of conditioning. When you treat a good film exclusively as “a film that meets all of my requirements”, determined by the patterns generated by your consumption habits, you lose the rhizomatic, recombinant interaction that is engaging with someone you love’s taste, or exposing something that touches you to them.

I am personally a very easy person to please artistically (at least in my field of interest, music), and I can say that I have already felt prevented from showing things I love to certain audiences (both on the experimental and on the conventional side) because I was sure that I would not be greeted with enthusiasm or interest. The work of recommending becomes less “I like it a lot”, and becomes more “I think you would like it”, which is not all bad. I still think it indicates a relationship of some affection, but this is the logic by which you give a birthday present, a physical object. I don’t think it should be the primary logic behind a community of art lovers.

And, in contrast to this phenomenon (which is more commonplace in popular fields of consumption), we have alternative communities, increasingly focused on individualization in a different direction. And, if we understand this phenomenon described by Scorsese as a consequence of capital, and we understand phenomena such as recuperation (described by the Situationist International movement) as the ability of capitalism to understand, absorb and thus “recuperate” initially anti-capitalist philosophies, I finally return to the idea that started this section.

***

Before leaving for the next part, I want to prepare a light addendum: Scorsese’s essay spends a lot of time not only talking about the work of Federico Fellini qualitatively, but also about the great scene of directors such as Godard, Bertolucci, Bergman, Welles and Bresson and the creativity they brought to the table. Talking so much about the quality of these directors may seem to go against my argument that goes more towards such a “cultural free fall” Xeno mentioned earlier, and I admit it openly. But I also don’t want to put words in Scorsese’s mouth or in any of the authors I mentioned. This is my best attempt to take a concept and run with it towards the hills, transform the speech of one, recombine with that of another and set up a great Atlantic miasma of gestures and possible combat fields. Again, I believe that Il Maestro by Scorsese is an incomparable point of power and discussion today, but, as Scorsese says in the text when he states that “Nobody was operating in a vacuum, everyone was feeding and answering someone”, I invite everyone. and any discussion does not start from a point where I misinterpreted or disarmed the arguments of Scorsese, Fisher, Williams or anyone else.

“Imagination is not fantasy. Nor is it sensitivity, although it is difficult to conceive of an imaginative man who is also not sensitive. Imagination is an almost divine faculty that perceives, first of all, within philosophical methods, the intimate and secret relationship between things, correspondences and analogies. The honors and functions that he gives to this faculty give it so much value … that a wise man without imagination now appears only as a false sage, or at least as an incomplete sage “- Charles Baudelaire in” Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe. “

Going For The One

And here you stand no taller than the grass seas

And should you really chase so hard

The truth of sport plays rings around you

Going for the one

I wanted to separate this from my main point in part because I wanted a space to throw my hat in the Scorsese polemic, but partly also because I believe that the phenomenon I will describe here, although interesting and central to my thinking, is one that affects a relatively small and, in the end, harmless community. Still, I believe that the phenomenon, even though it is not the culprit for the state we are in, nor is it totalizing and general, is still a reflection of this individualizing movement of capitalism. These philosophies were not created by capitalism and should not be seen as helping the system 100% of the time.

Preamble given, I would like to paint a picture.

You are a young music fan. You started your musical life by perhaps listening to a mix of modern pop and whatever your parents like (which is probably also part of the popular cultural canon). You like modern hip hop, and through its growing popularity you hear Kendrick Lamar. An insanely popular rapper, but also with gigantic critical acclaim. Listening to To Pimp A Butterfly, you notice saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s credit. You decide to listen to the album The Epic, a 3-hour monolith of various influences from the jazz world, which is still extremely accessible with its sticky themes, infectious band dynamics and memorable songwriting. In some music forum you mention Kamasi as an artist you like. A group of people scoff at your taste, as Kamasi is not only an accessible and popular artist, but “shallow” for the Spiritual Jazz genre. In the middle of that, someone recommends John Coltrane, the person who basically started Spiritual Jazz. You also fall in love, but the job is not over yet. “John Coltrane? Everyone knows him. You are not special because you like A Love Supreme.” You decide to go further down the hole and meet Pharoah Sanders. It’s still not good enough. You will go further and further across the jazz canon, exploring its various facets, but you will always have some Big Others to scold you for liking “generic” things, which “everyone likes”. The ultimate solution becomes to look for artists that are increasingly obscure in these genres, musicians that have had almost no commercial success; perhaps lost gems of creativity, but often merely artists who were part of the aesthetic zeitgeist, and just not popular. But by this point, you’ve alienated yourself from a community that was hostile to you, from people who listen to popular music. You are in a cul-de-sac of musical taste, where the only thing that excites you is no longer necessarily an affinity towards what you hear, but how obscure it is. And now, as a reflection of that, whenever you see someone praising Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, your first reaction is to make fun of them as being ignorant, having shallow taste, or a combination of whatever else.

This is undoubtedly an exaggerated narrative (I admit that most of this behavior I have observed in my time combing Facebook, Twitter, and forums like that, in some cases on the receiving end of the scorn; and I admit that I have come close to becoming the snob in question). And yet, I believe it is a real phenomenon, with roots in capital. It is a continuous quest to appear to be the most original person, with the most obscure and deepest taste (that is, the best). Just as one aims to appear richer before society (not only being richer, but possessing the products of expensive brands, instantly announcing to the people around them “I have, therefore I am better”), in the art world there is a “fury in disappearing” being distorted, a race to the bottom, the search for the most unrecognizable album charts.

In his Beyond McMindfulness article, David Loy attacks the secular version of Buddhist teachings used in corporate media. Loy writes:

“ While a stripped-down, secularized technique — what some critics are now calling “McMindfulness” — may make it more palatable to the corporate world, decontextualizing mindfulness from its original liberative and transformative purpose, as well as its foundation in social ethics, amounts to a Faustian bargain. Rather than applying mindfulness as a means to awaken individuals and organizations from the unwholesome roots of greed, ill will and delusion, it is usually being refashioned into a banal, therapeutic, self-help technique that can actually reinforce those roots.”

I would like to call attention to the Faustian bargain, which is the cult of originality on the side of the consumer community. That which manifests itself as Arboreal Creativity on the side of the creator (or, if not from the creator, from the audience towards the creator). I use the term Arborescence, taken from Deleuze & Guattari, to characterize a specific version of creativity, which, as used by D&G in regard to books, indicates a totalizing and binary view of creativity. Basically, it is either creative or derivative, with no connection space between the two. And both classifications manifest themselves as moral positions as well, with the creative being the innovator, the one who moves mountains through art, and the derivative as being malicious, wanting to use music for purposes nefarious and capitalist. A debate that I see often becomes emblematic here: the Beatles — Beach Boys — Velvet Underground axis.

The Beatles are an extremely popular band, perhaps the most popular band in the world. So I’m not saying that any anti-Beatles opinion counts as more than a few drops in the ocean. But this kind of discussion happens too often for me to ignore (besides being a useful illustration of the point i want to get towards). We have a group of people ‘A’ who are Beatles fans, a group ‘B’ who like the Beach Boys, and a group ‘C’ who like Velvet Underground. A claim that the Beatles, being the most popular band in the world, are therefore the most influential, and thus the best. B counters A by saying that the Beatles were not “that innovative”, pointing to artists like The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective, Wilco, Radiohead, and Fleet Foxes being influenced by the Beach Boys. The argument is not “the Beach Boys are more popular than the Beatles”, but that their influence on the bands that “matter” (the bands that a “normie” may not know), makes them more important. C arrives, and says that the Velvet Underground is actually the most influential rock band of the 60s, given that they were doing proto-punk! They were innovating music by creating something that would only really be understood 10 years later, by a movement that would take over the music world and whose influence is still felt today, so the laurels must actually go to The Velvet Underground. But here we entered a undsicussed impasse: TVU, at the time, was a very unsuccessful band. Even with its association with Andy Warhol, the (now) iconic The Velvet Underground & Nico was a commercial failure, banned from the radio for its controversial lyrics, with little critical interest. The highest position the album had on the Billboard charts was 171 in December ’67 (the ironically-named single Am I That Easy To Forget by Engelbert Humperdinck ended the same week at position 89, and I can guarantee that this is not a classic of ’60s R&B). TVU’s influence on the punk movement may not be non-existent, but it is somewhat retroactive. But that doesn’t matter, because the band’s obscurantism, in the end, only adds to the mystery, and, thus, the percieved influence.

I love all of these bands, and I believe that whatever your choice of favorite band, it’s fair and reasonable as taste. But notice how there is a double movement in the popularity and the influence itself. The Beatles are unquestionably the most popular band of the three, thus considered to be the most generic; while TVU, the most unpopular, is the most “influential” after all. This is arboreocreativity : this balancing game between obscurity and a value judgment of such obscurantism. It is this behavior that stimulates these mad searches for the one, the only artist that originated the rest of the history of music; and not only that, but an artist that no one has ever heard before.

The writer Rhett, in his excellent post The Curse Of The Silent Houses, describes a tendency proliferation of scenes that are increasingly hyper-specific musically (in the case of his post, ​​Eastern European post-punk that reflects a certain melancholy with the fall of the Soviet Union, colloquially referred to as “Russian doomer”).

“In other words, we are witnessing a shift from the dialectical contrast between the ruling cultural class and the indie or subcultural underdogs towards a horizontal arms-race to construct scenes and sensibilities out of thin air and convince as many people as possible that they are an actually existing thing. After all, what is a doomer aside from a loose connection of random, bleak character-traits?

Молчат дома are the unsuspecting victims of this form of cultural production, this shift from a cultural hegemony, which is either locally broken by a strong indie scene or which rules uncontested over the market, towards a proliferation of small barely-real niches, which appear out of the machinations of our distributed and involuntarily self-orchestrated (by no one and everyone) activity on the internet. Even the bigger, most organized taste-makers within these pocket-scenes (for example, still talking about the Russian Doomer music, the anonymous Youtuber Harakiri Diat, whose channel is a small masterpiece of curatorial work) are mostly anonymous nodes within a multidirectional network of anon cultural critics. We are witnessing the provincialization of the mainstream. Everything is a subculture now.”

This movement (which Anna Greenspan and Suzanne Livingston call “Future Mutation”) is not necessarily negative (Rhett ends the article with a relatively optimistic view, pointing out how these increasingly specific niches can act as a shock to the cultural system, leading to more unpredictable territories; but also warning how this is not only a reflection of capitalism, but through the very nature of how music is consumed, is fueled by capitalism as well), but I think that it points in the same direction: a destruction of the most wholesome ideas of “community”.

The last phenomenon I want to point out in relation to this is, perhaps, the most important: what we now call Gatekeeping, the act of hiding things that you like from general audiences, and the associated phenomenon whereby an artist or music looks “worse” after becoming popular. This is the epitome of anti-curation, even moreso than the algorithm or Future Mutation, despite it still being included in what I call Arboreal Creativity: literally, the practice of hiding what you like, the attempt to be part of the secret society that it is to like some artist or work of art.

Another reason why I believe that Scorsese’s essay is so necessary: ​​in his harsh criticisms of things that can generally be described as “popular culture”, his overall attitude is to want to introduce more things to more people.

“We can’t depend on the movie business, such as it is, to take care of cinema. In the movie business, which is now the mass visual entertainment business, the emphasis is always on the word “business,” and value is always determined by the amount of money to be made from any given property — in that sense, everything from Sunrise to La Strada to 2001 is now pretty much wrung dry and ready for the “Art Film” swim lane on a streaming platform. Those of us who know the cinema and its history have to share our love and our knowledge with as many people as possible. And we have to make it crystal clear to the current legal owners of these films that they amount to much, much more than mere property to be exploited and then locked away. They are among the greatest treasures of our culture, and they must be treated accordingly.”

Looking beyond phrases that usually make me roll my eyes (like “those of us who know cinema and its history”, something that could easily be said by a gatekeeper), there is an obvious theme: we must create a stronger community. And we should make this kind of space accessible and debatable at all times. Here I see an affinity between Scorcese’s ideas and what Fisher called “Popular Modernism”, a trend in 80’s pop music towards balancing accessibility with its experimentation such that one side intensifies the other. But, unlike Fisher (who Alex Williams criticizes for assigning moral weight to younger musicians who are not innovative enough), Scorsese recognizes that the blame lies in the system, not necessarily in producers or consumers. As Deleuze says in his “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, “There’s no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.” Well, where are the weapons?

Spells On U

Part of the impetus behind this text was following the discussion between Xenogothic and Bluemink on the topic of hauntology and the legacy of SOPHIE (experimental producer of electronic and pop music, integral to the rise of the recent “Hyperpop’’ movement), and feeling a growing frustration at how the discourse was progressing. I quite like the Xenogothic texts (I’m not an accelerationist myself, though i have a lot of sympathy for the theories coming out of that camp, but I find his explanations of concepts coming from Fisher, D&G and Badiou as extremely useful), but I started to feel that his need to analyze SOPHIE in Fisherian terms of accelerationist conflict became insensitive (in this moment, of the death of a trans woman, we’re still centering the discussion on a cis man to explain how the genre SOPHIE helped create is not that innovative? All of this to defend the hauntological terminology for “believing in a world that is no longer white, male and heterossexual”? Give it a rest), and as much as I generally take Bluemink’s side, I can’t help but think something is missing from his speech too.

I don’t claim to have a final solution, the insight that will save the art world. For me, the solution would be a change in the manner of discussion, a more self-aware consciousness, or the summary end of capitalism. Whichever comes first. However, I want to point out some lines of flight that, perhaps if not definitive, give me hope.

To start, I think Scorsese is doing a great job of putting his money where his mouth is: he founded The Film Foundation in the 90s, The World Cinema Project in 2007, and The African Film Heritage Project in 2017, projects that seek to revitalize and distribute not only “classics”, re-intensifying a “traditional” canon of cinema, but to bring voices from around the world to a higher level of distribution. This is an extremely commendable attitude, and we desperately need more organizations with similar goals.

The other two recommendations i want to give are an album and a film, which I think may be points of interest for the conflict pointed out here.

The first is Panos Cosmatos’s film Mandy. I don’t believe it to be the most unusual recommendation (again, I don’t want to look for the obscure in and of itself), but I do believe it is a moment of note in modern cinema. It is an extremely retro film, drenched in the aesthetics of films like Evil Dead and 80s neon. But it is not a “Retro™” film. Cosmatos did not make a parody of an exaggerated version of 80’s trash cinema (such as Kung Fury), nor a hyper-romanticized version of 80’s aesthetics (like Drive); he simply made a great film that would work well, even if made in the 1980s. The film, while clearly indebted to the horror of the era, recognizes that these films were not hyper-sensitive to the fact that they were made at a time in history, as part of a era of films, or something: they just wanted to be films. Mandy is an extremely simple, straightforward story of revenge and mourning, with an impeccable atmosphere, which “refuses to pretend that the 80s did not happen” (without engaging in a “trendy” version of what this revivalism can mean). The film doesn’t make friends with the system because of its extremism, it doesn’t make friends with an alternative system because of its simplicity; it dances to the beat of its own drum itself (which may well have been a sampled breakbeat, who knows). (PS: I believe the film The Void is on a similar line of flight, and even though I’m not the biggest fan of the film, I’m happy that more people are pulling on that thread).

The other product is That Kid’s mixtape Crush. I already talked a lot about That Kid in my post about postmodern old school, so to stick to the point of that text: That Kid and the hyperpop movement are the perfect way to do the revolutionary work that pop needs to do, in order to disconnect capital and the sound of pop music. A phrase that I keep repeating when I see neo-Adornist views that pop music is not “bad” or “immoral” sonically speaking in a vacuum, but should be discouraged for its feeding into capitalism, is that the work of revolutionizing pop shouldn’t be a duty left for after the revolution. If our course of action is to destroy pop and then bring our communist utopia into reality, the reconstruction of pop will not occur, as its image will always be anti-revolutionary, and its reconstruction will be the return of the system that we worked so hard to to destroy. Just as Victor Hugo points to the churches and public buildings of that kind as a great social lingua franca, popular music (as pointed out by Fisher’s concept of popular modernism) is a valuable weapon (not only revolutionary, but libidinal). I believe That Kid does an extremely important job: here we have songs clearly indebted to Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Madonna, the most pop pop possible, but which is still sonically DIY to the core. Independent music does not need to be contained in the same formats that have always functioned, and pop music does not need to make compromises for its sonic density. In That Kid we have frantic, sonically rich, and genuinely shocking songs, but also the danceable comfort of great pop music. This is the modus operandi that artists like Slayyyter, 100 Gecs, and GFOTY (and, previously, SOPHIE) work with, and I think that following this line of flight to separate pop music from capital is extremely necessary (as opposed to taking a parallel line, apparently disconnected from capital, but following in the same direction of tree-lined hierarchy that capital generates).

In short, we need more artistic rhizomes, made not only from recombined artistic components, but from an inviting and happy community that freely shares interests and listens to one another. We need more honesty. And, if it were up to me, the Scorseses, That Kids and Cosmatoses would have the reins of this new rhizomatic artistic community.

(Sources and references, in rough order of appearance)

Music
Criticism
Culture
Art
Cinema

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Gabriela Syderas

Written by Gabriela Syderas

29 Followers

History of the Arts Student at Rio De Janeiro State University, Essayist and sound artist. Sonic Fiction enthusiast, gender anarchist trans woman.

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