Modern Mimicries of Creativity

1.

‘The first stage of the economy’s domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having — human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed. The present stage, in which social life has become completely occupied by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing — all ‘having’ must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances.

Guy Debord (1970, thesis 17) Society of the Spectacle

Creativity, as a concept, moniker, descriptor, process, tool, dispositif—is as much affected by the historic and present domination of the economy over social life as everything else. This process of procedural degradation, from being into having, then having into appearing, is followed by understandings and treatments of creativity and artistry over time.

Creativity is used as a moniker for the personal, a descriptor meant to benefit/separate in the vernacular and professional, distinguishing those who wield it. Who doesn’t want to be described and known as creative? When creativity is tied actively to identity en masse, it results in a shift opposed to the affective field of combat of the early bourgeois modern artistic field Reckwitz (2017a) describes. The early labelling of artists under the lens of pathology led to defamations of the artist as a dangerous and immoral figure, as well as common heated disputes between artists and audiences over proper standards of aestheticism—causing the artist to be degraded to a despised symbol of the disintegration of social order (p.55). 

Contemporarily, the artist (and their creativity) represent what happens to understandings of being an artist and being creative in relation to their integration into the social order. They serve a key part due to the economy’s (capitalism) domination of life, the argument here being that due to a modern historical backdrop of consuming art/the content of artists as mimicable, we see a peak neoliberal meritocratic belief that anyone can be creative, they themselves a creative artist. The resulting contemporary perception of creativity and artists as not just relatable figures, but valued creatively by audiences via relatability and desire for mimicability. The notion that anyone can look at an artist and feel an innate want to become them is the problematic focus of this revamped-longwinded CMNS488 paper.

Creativity is then commodified under a subjective pursuit and desire for an improved life. Understood as a desirable object achievable through mimicable means, individualized and pursuable to achieve a goal of wealth, fame, and more. Creativity acts as the appearance of true desire, the palletizer. A consequence of how under capitalism, even being materially comfortable is considered insufficient, creating an incessant want for more. Creativity advertised-while-guised as a social issue, creating a need to work a job that has ‘meaning’, or a hobby that’s artistic, where creativity is consistently a source and tool for stimulation. It acts as a pursuit, a way we try to grasp for control of more.

On an individual level, it is an attempt to weaponize the dispositif as a goal for the self, as well as a desire for meaning/control over the emotional/material conditions of life through pursuit of it. 

2.

It is this shift of creativity from ostracizable and pathological, to mimicable, admirable, and wielded as a descriptor en masse that serves as the theoretical interest of this snobbish blog.

Contemporary perceptions of artists render them hypervisible due to the frictionless and pervasive nature of mobile digital media. Always mimicable and relatable, brought down to earth, their stories of success are told as myths — almost always facilitated by media/cultural industries who utilize this pursuit of creativity as the dispositif to maintain and exercise power, as corporate and elite concentrations of power in the privatized industries of the media (Harvey, 2007), work as a reflection of their interests and as a vessel to produce influential public discourse intended to affect the public at large (van Dijk, 1995).

In tracing the transformation of creativity from the state of ‘being’ to ‘having’, to ‘appearing’ in the spectacled modern society, we have to consider the historical emergence of the creativity dispositif within the period preceding late-modernity. Dispositif (Foucault, 1980) can be understood as the network/apparatus of forces, the power relations, that shape and influence our understandings and practices. These power relations can manifest in forms discoursal, institutional, and/or cultural — A general ensemble established between apparated forces resulting in a ‘coherent, rational strategy, but one for which it is no longer possible to identity a person who conceived it.’ (p.203). In the context of the bohemian-bourgeoisie idea of the artist during the 18th and 20th centuries, we understand that understandings of creativity and those who practice it in the arts were understood pathologically, isolated and pariahed (Reckwitz, 2017a). This ostracization did not denote a lack of admiration. Instead, over time, the public admired the artist for their licence to follow their creative impulses and imagination, their work valued for its deviation from social norms and historical precedent. The subversive nature of the artist was understood from its subversive societal effect, a necessary presence that was provocative, and not necessarily desired to be inimitable by the public. ‘The artist received social approbation for being other, for his non-conformity, often enough posthumously.’ (p.56).

The posthumous approval from the public/audience shows how the artist was initially marked as a dangerous figure, labelled and understood in the psycho-pathological register, and outcasted due to their perceived unpredictability and moral degeneration (Reckwitz, 2017a, p.53). The dichotomy of veneration and pathologization played a critical social role in how artists were revered and simultaneously marginalized for their perceived unique qualities (Pollock, 1980). As time progresses, the creative prescription of ‘genius’ more frequently becomes a term used to describe artists.

Arendt (2018) notes how the phenomenon of ‘genius’ was understood as the highest ideal at the end of the 19th century, and it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that the romanticized notion of the ‘genius’ artist was protested against, artists preferring to be recognized for their craftsmanship, competence, and skill. The artist here protested over the way they were understood by the public, and it was a response to the rise of a labour-driven society where ‘genius’ was undergoing a process of commodification (Arendt, 2018, p.210), of being shaped by the economy. The creativity dispositif here is the struggle for the way artistry should be understood fought between the artist and the public. Away from romanticism and commodification, and towards a more craftmanship understanding built on relationships between their artistic process and craft culture.

3.

The looming fear of reproduction hangs over the creative process and distinctions of art and its effects. Walter Benjamin’s notion of the ‘aura.’ A contemplative characteristic that is lost through reproduction and technological imitation. Reproduction of the original piece, the genuine piece, ‘removes the thing reproduced from the realm of tradition. In making many copies of the reproduction, it substitutes for its unique incidence a multiplicity of incidences […] allowing the reproduction to come closer to whatever situation the person apprehending it is in, it actualizes what is reproduced.’ (p.7 ), it loses its genuineness, the thing that embodies everything since its creation that has shaped it (p.7).

Here the reproduction of a creative work—the very product of a creative practice—is a critique of what is lost. And what we see as time progresses is the reproduction of creativity as an individual characteristic. Removing the original aura not of the object created by the artist, but of the artist’s signature, their own personified ‘aura’. Benjamin’s aura helps to understand how the process of reproduction (while used technologically), applies to reproduction of the social and personal as well. An already diluted object, now thinned tenfold.

While the auratic nature may not be there in a meaningful capacity anymore. The genuineness of the original is the thing lost in the contemporary era in a process of commodifying the idea of creativity in pursuit of the true object of desire. Having is lost, replaced by appearing as the understanding of creativity’s auratic and genuine nature is only embodied by the original artist. Appearing is the result of reproducing the genuineness of creative artists and losing the auratic nature, something never truly possible to reproduce in the first place.

We have to return to the Mickey Mouse Slop House: These are the societal consequences of being subjected to hyperconnected social communication. Influenced by the technology of seeing lives in front of you, lives much better, and lives much worse than yours. But never yours. And those who aim to present their lives project the idealized self. The opposite: presenting an ironic dramatized self projects still, not the self. Steer away from idols and models of behavior and life, the medium is not capable of accurately expressing so authentic a takeaway. And is certainly not capable of expressing an authentic act of reproduction either.

4.

The mass adoption of creativity is seen in the growth of hobby culture and new understandings of what to do with leisure. The answer was consumerism.

Creative pursuits and DIY hobby culture began to fill the market gap of the average consumer who had leisure time on their hands, and wanted to embody the pursuit of creativity for their own gain. This is seen by how the market-driven spread of media (TV, how-to guides) and commodities to nudge buyers to ‘purchase creativity via consumption’ (Marling, 1994; Cohen-Cole, 2009).

Hannah Arendt (2018) illustrates as well how these creative pursuits were understood between the varying notions of ‘hobby,’ ‘labour,’ and ‘play.’ ‘The playfulness of the artist is felt to fulfil the same function in the laboring life process of society as the playing of tennis or the pursuit of a hobby fulfils in the life of the individual […] ‘From the standpoint of "making a living," every activity unconnected with labor becomes a "hobby.”’ (p.128).

It was in the milieu of a leisure-filled American society which bred the market for the rise of activities unconnected with labor. The justification that institutions not just enabled but were ideologically supported of was the threat of conformity and authoritarianism. Here, consumption of commodities becomes the coherent, rational strategy without one clear conceiver, the power relations that put forward creativity as consumable and practicable for the American free-thinker, the naturalized but influenced outcome.

Creativity operated and existed with play, the rise of novelty and commodity fetishism as a greater influencer in what determined a creative practice. In this framework creativity became a commodified pursuit, linked with the subjective aspiration for an enhanced lifestyle. Consumerism allowed it to be perceived as a tangible goal attainable through purchasable televised and advertised arbiters. All one had to do was push the button and the product will do the rest. 

Baudrillard writes on the way both choice and advertising serve to transform what is a purely commercial relationship (the transaction of commodities) into a personal one by renewing links to the ‘archaic rituals of giving, of offering presents, as well as the infantile situation of a passive gratification vouchsafed by the parents’ (p.171). Here, the personal relationship is gratified through the idea that this commodity has the most potential for my own creativity and self-actualization as a creative practitioner. What at its basic level is a commercial relationship, the purchasing of non-magic markers, becomes personal by selling them as the solution to a social issue.

A modern understanding of the creativity dispositif in a consumerist society shows that advertising functions extraordinarily well when guised within the personal points of social issues, and creativity as a social issue (that remains today) opens up the market in a multitude of ways.

5.

Reckwitz (2017b) points out the new guiding criterion enforcing the creativity dispositif in late-modernity ‘Now in the context of the creativity dispositif, attention is directed by the guiding criterion: The New.’ (p.135) It is attention that holds together producers, audience, and objects, the management of audience’s attention becomes the coordinator of the creativity dispositif (Reckwitz, 2017b).

When neoliberalism becomes the dominant organizing principle of social life (Schor, 2005; Harvey, 2007), novelty serves as the dazzling motivation for consumption. And when entertainment always occupies an ideological place within media industries (Frith, 1999), the consumption of entertainment and the transaction of attention for consumption, represents the relations of power in the modern creativity dispositif. Pop culture becomes valued only on its function as an ability to generate the most quantified attention (in sales, awards, etc…), creative practices here are reapplied to the pursuit of popularity — of fame, happiness, and success.

A stark opposition, as Baudrillard (1998) argues that the very moniker of ‘Pop’ given to artists signifies the end of the creative act, losing the perspective, evocative, subversive nature at the heart of the curse of art in its creative pursuit (p.116). The distinguisher and industry-facilitated categorization of art under ‘pop’ cements the shift to the late-modern creativity dispositif as management of attention. Creative practices now take on the role of the popularity pursuit, a pursuit through ‘pop’ art of quantifiable success through fame or capital. Creativity is the tool and job through which one can achieve the object of their desire. The end result of creative practices, which reinforces and affects the intention of creative practices, becomes the valued object for artists. Artistry is now in the mass-consumed culture industry, artisanry. While this is not without historical precedent, it is the scale of which, and the context of an increasingly digital-visual media consummatory culture, and further radicalized neoliberal conditions which exacerbate this contemporary issue. 

6.

In the digital age, creativity is a characteristic that can made to appear through the performative aspects of social media. Expressed in a carefully curated form, the emphasis is on reaching the desire of the distinction of popular. The emphasis is built performatively, and the nature of performativity further hides the genuine, it is another example of the appearance transcending over being and having. ‘Producers before an audience are always producers of performative acts. They ‘perform’ in front of an audience. (Reckwitz, 2017b, p.134-135). Just because an audience for digital media is not guaranteed or known beforehand, does not mean digital media is not created/shaped by producers in a way that does not expect an audience to be there consuming. Performativity is a means of encapsulating the necessary aesthetic components to attract attention for long enough to produce an aesthetic effect on the audience (p.135).

The novel has to be novel to an unprecedented extent. Historically, creative practices online now deal with the negotiation between an audience that cannot be fully understood or catered to. Artists symbolize presently the societal shift in how they are perceived by society. The change is rooted in a historical context where art and creative practices were increasingly seen as purchasable commodities through consumerism. Fuelling a widespread neoliberal belief that creativity is a practice that is necessary to the individual self’s expression, and the status of an artist is attainable by all through consumption. Position artists as relatable entities as well as being valued for their familiarity and potential for emulation. It is the potential for which the dispositif drives, the potential for emulation as a keeper and maintainer of attention.

‘Finally, economy, mass media and psychological discourse become aesthetic, while the artistic field and the artist lose their aura. They all become equal, interconnected segments of the creativity dispositif.’ (Reckwitz, 2017a, p.56).

The consequence of our contemporary era’s understanding of the utilization of creativity is a desire for meaning/control over the emotional/material conditions of life that leave a want for more. Here creativity is a means and process for the true desired object of wealth, fame, or success is not leaving its mimics with anything resembling an auratic nature. What is mimicked is an inauratic, surface-level embodiment of segments of meaning that lost its genuineness long ago. Mimicry is a process never successful even if completed ‘objectively’. Remaining mute and incapable of an aura — failing if we choose to interpret it as the mirror of a living person, it cannot be reified by the essence of the mimicked ‘the idolization of genius harbours the same degradation of the human person as the other tenets prevalent in a commercial society.’ (Arendt, 2018, p.210) Reproduction of the creative practices of artists in the spectacle society of hypervisibility fails in the same way commodification and commercialism changed the meaning of art and creativity into something wholly different.

What is mimicked is an unauratic, surface-level embodiment of segments of meaning that lost its genuineness long ago. Appearing, but like lensless spectacles.

References

Arendt, H. (2018). The human condition. The University of Chicago Press. 

Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society: Myths & Structures. Sage Publications. 

Baudrillard, J. (2020). The System of Objects. Verso. 

Benjamin, W. (2008). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (J. A. Underwood, Trans.). Penguin Books. 

Debord, G. (1970). Society of the spectacle. Black & Red. 

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge. A selected interviews and other writings 1972-77. Pantheon Books. 

Frith, S. (1999). Performing rites: On the value of popular music. Harvard Univ. Press.

Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. MTM. 

Marling, K. A. (1994). As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjhzqsj

Pollock, G. (1980). Artists, Mythologies and Media — Genius, Madness and Art History. Screen, 21, 57-96.

Reckwitz, A. (2017a). The Invention of Creativity: Modern Society and the Culture of the New (S. Black, Trans.). Polity Press.

Reckwitz, A. (2017b). The Creativity Dispositif and the Social Regimes of the New. Innovation Society Today, 127–145. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19269-3_6 

Schor, J. B. (2007). Conspicuous Consumption. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosc096 

van Dijk, T. A. (1995). Communicating racism: Ethnic prejudice in thought and talk. Sage.