Classically (Un)Trained

Watch video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4O0W4A2l5ds

I learned the term "scriptlessness" recently and realized it's why I started the Artists on the Verge channel.

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t until 2020 that the G20 held its first Cultural Ministerial Meeting to discuss the importance of the creative sector to the economy and it wasn’t until 2021 that they established the Cultural Working Group, the purpose of which is to address issues relating to the creative economy.

So, what I’m going to read to you today, is a report on the state of the creative industries which was written up for the first Cultural Working Group in 2021 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

I have not been able to find any documents on what the three years of G20 discussions on the cultural sector have actually yielded, but will keep an eye on that!

Link to the full report: https://www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/OECD-G20-Culture-July-2021.pdf

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: ⁠www.artists-on-the-verge.com⁠

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

This is the second part of my reading “The Arts After Darwin: Does Art Have an Origin and Adaptive Function?”

In the first part of the essay, Ellen Dissanayake explained why she thinks it’s helpful to think of art as an adaptive function and lays out some of the existing hypotheses of how art may have helped us survive, in the Darwinian sense. However, she argues most of the existing hypothesis aren’t really general enough or are skewed by Western notions of what art is. In the second half of the paper, which I read to you in this episode, the author lays out her own hypothesis about the adaptive function of art, which she argues is more universal.

The author, Ellen Dissanayake, is best known for three books on art anthropology: What Is Art For? (1988), Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and Why (1992) and Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began (2000). I chose to read “Arts After Darwin”, which was published in 2008 as a chapter in a book called World Art Studies, not just because it’s a shorter, stand-alone, piece but also because it is general enough to serve as an introduction for someone, like me, who isn’t an anthropologist. It was also published after Dissanayake’s three main books on art anthropology, which means she had completed the bulk of her research into this subject by the time she wrote this – not to mention that recency is very important when considering academic writing, especially when there’s a scientific aspect to it.  

You can read "Art After Darwin" yourself here: http://mail.ellendissanayake.com/publications/pdf/EllenDissanayake_ArtsAfterDarwinWAS08.pdf

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: ⁠www.artists-on-the-verge.com⁠

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

This is the first part of my reading “The Arts After Darwin: Does Art Have an Origin and Adaptive Function?”

The author, Ellen Dissanayake, is best known for three books on art anthropology: What Is Art For? (1988), Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and Why (1992) and Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began (2000). I chose to read “Arts After Darwin”, which was published in 2008 as a chapter in a book called World Art Studies, not just because it’s a shorter, stand-alone, piece but also because it is general enough to serve as an introduction for someone, like me, who isn’t an anthropologist. It was also published after Dissanayake’s three main books on art anthropology, which means she had completed the bulk of her research into this subject by the time she wrote this – not to mention that recency is very important when considering academic writing, especially when there’s a scientific aspect to it.  

You can read "Art After Darwin" yourself here: http://mail.ellendissanayake.com/publications/pdf/EllenDissanayake_ArtsAfterDarwinWAS08.pdf

*I accidently called the paper an “essay” on the recording, which isn’t the right term for this kind of paper.

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: ⁠www.artists-on-the-verge.com⁠

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

An under-3-minute summary of the three-part essay "Another Artworld" which examines the fraught legacy of "high" art. Also - my take.

This is actually a video episode, though it can also just be listened to. You can find it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/PaS0CWcMvEI

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

This is my honest review of the colossal undertaking that

Link to my review in Theorema Review: https://theorem-a.org/2023/06/21/everything-for-dawn-by-experiments-in-opera/

Link to Experiments in Opera’s Everything for Dawn: https://experimentsinopera.com/portfolio-item/everythingfordawn/

Live reaction to Everything for Dawn w/ Jim Osman:

Episode 1: https://youtu.be/1wP0aKjKfw0

Episode 2: https://youtu.be/Of3OzIDa43A

Episode 3: https://youtu.be/Vw_n4ydRlAE

Conversation with Jason Cady on Artists on the Verge: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/zYCdeKnuOAb

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: ⁠www.artists-on-the-verge.com⁠

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

We're finally here - at the third installment of reading "Another Art World" by Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber. Even if you're a new listener, you can start here because in the last segment, the author's promised to finally get to the heart of the matter: What might "another art world" look like?

But – something happened between the last instalment of the essay, published in November 2019, and this installment from November 2020: the pandemic and the anti policing protests of the summer of 2020. Understandably, the authors felt they had to switch gears – so this installment of the essay spends quite some time drawing a parallel between the police state and the art world.

Link to the third installment of "Another Art World" in eFlux magazine: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/113/360192/another-art-world-part-3-policing-and-symbolic-order/

My interview with co-author Nika Dubrovsky: https://youtu.be/j9TyYRo0OQQ

Music:

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: www.artists-on-the-verge.com

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

This is an episode of the old podcast, called Artists on the Verge. I decided to keep these conversations up in the feed because they are, in fact, part of what led me to create Classically (Un)Trained. I have taken down all except the artist interviews - but you can check out an expanded archive here: https://classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com/former-podcast-archive/

Check out the current podcast here: https://classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com/

This episode is a conversation with composer and Web III researcher Reilly Smethurst - who thinks the internet is just about the worst thing that happened to artists. Is it a pessimistic episode? I actually don't think so.

My take: The fact that the internet does not replace real-life communities and live gatherings around art, and hurts artists by creating global, algorithmically-moderated competition, is an empowering bit of knowledge which I hope inspires listeners to find ways to make art outside the internet and use the internet in smart ways to their advantage.

Reilly and I talk about the strange disbalance between the number of viable career paths for artists and the number of people studying creative disciplines, the absurdities of arts funding, the difference between the Dionysian and Apollonian approach to creating, artificial scarcity, how regulation may be the only answer to the excesses of the online arts market, and Reilly’s one actionable solution to the predicament posed by the internet, among other things.

All music in this episode by Reilly Smethurst:

Inheritance (2019)

Uterus (2016)

Organised (2019)

During the interview, we mention the

My interview with Nika Dubrovsky: https://youtu.be/j9TyYRo0OQQ

Reacting to “Another Art World” Pt.

Reacting to “Another Art World” Pt.

Timestamps (add 30 seconds to account for intro):

00:00 Intro

02:28 Arts careers on the decline but more people studying arts

08:32 The problem with electronic music and Reilly's "Apollonian reactionary phase"

20:00 Mocking the arts funding bodies

23:37 Web II and Web III - almost the same and both bad for artists + failures of Audius and OpenSea and the difference between music industry and art industry

40:57 Reilly's advice about how to face a world impacted by the internet

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

About the host ✌🏼: www.emakatrovas.com

💌Newsletter (best way to stay in touch): https://mailchi.mp/45b402876641/artistsontheverge

😇 Become a patron and gain access to "backstage" videos: https://steadyhq.com/en/opera-on-the-verge

No time to read academic essays? Well, have no fear, we'll read this one together. "Another Art World" by David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky examines how we might re-imagine the art world.

Part II of "Another Art World" lays out a hypothesis about how post-industrial ideas of production as well as ideas imbedded in Western thought as far back as Greek myth, unfairly legitimize the existence of curators, art dealers, and art administrators, who safeguard the ONE rule that can’t be broken within the art establishment. If you want to know what that rule is, keep listening. Oh, and that faux “experimental,” “boundary-pushing” posture of contemporary art? They argue it’s not a bug but a feature, one that benefits those who most profit from art dealing.

This is an episode of the old podcast, called Artists on the Verge. I decided to keep these conversations up in the feed because they are, in fact, part of what led me to create Classically (Un)Trained. I have taken down all except the artist interviews - but you can check out an expanded archive here: https://classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com/former-podcast-archive/

Check out the current podcast here: https://classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com/

David (aka Dev) Devereux's story is one of carving out a space of freedom online. A full-time sound engineer by profession, Dev is the founder of Tin Can Audio, a Glasgow-based audio fiction company which has become home to all the strange sounds and stories Dev wants to make.

Community is important to Dev’s story – from the community of wonderful voice actors and creators around Tin Can Audio to the online community, which Dev has engaged in interesting ways by opening up the creative process to the public (for example by making an entire audio fiction drama, from script writing to sound editing, live on Twitch.)

Dev and I talk about the origins of and funny stories from the series made under Tin Can Audio, about the more unexpected inspirations for stories from video games to music to popular TV shows, the idea of demystifying the creative process and showing audiences how things are made, and about how much time goes into making something that’s actually good, among other things.

This episode features music from Dev’s audio fiction (The Tower and Middle:Bellow, respectively) as well as excerpts from the audio fictions Tin Can, Middle:Bellow, The Tower, The Dungeons Economic Model, and Anamnesis featuring the voices of (in order of appearance):

David Devereux

Charlotte Ryder

David Pellow

Katrina Allen

Mark Gallie

Roger Best

Links :

https://daviddevereux.carrd.co/

https://www.tincanaudio.co.uk/

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: https://onthevergetrilogy.com/