Wishful thinking. Unproven and desperately in need of factually cited examples.<\/p>\n
Many original musicians have sold (individually) 10’s of million of albums and sold out huge arenas and stadiums.
\nMerchandising in the form of movies, games, clothes and other tangible commerce comes along with it.
\nWith each artist or act, there comes a huge amount of employment. People eat supporting talented artists.
\nDrivers, hair and makeup people, roadies, techs, agents, engineers, flights, hotels, legal needs… the list could go on quite a ways.
\nEach artist actually becomes an employer and helps support a large number of people in various trades.
\nThe level of their musicianship rises to the point of demand and creates jobs and even industries sometimes.
\nNewman’s own salad dressing wouldn’t be able to donate millions of dollars had Paul Newman been a bad actor.
\nAngelina Jolie couldn’t help adopt need children or become an inspiring figurehead for that cause.
\nSting, Bono and others couldn’t gain the ground needed to elicit milions of dollars to help the rain forests or the victims of land mines.
\nThat is social responsibility and only comes with definite, appreciated artistry. <\/p>\n
Now, name some DJ’s that have packed an arena or stadium or sold platinum albums.
\nName an artist known for their work on circuit bent instruments that creates and supports jobs.
\nName either that can affect society to the point that everyone knows their name and has an opinion of their art.
\nName some that have created sectors of jobs, obtained millions of dollars in needy donations or inspired masses.
\nThey don’t exist. <\/p>\n
See how limiting such “art” is?
\nCircuitbending’s outreach is tiny. Likely unmeasurable.
\nThey do little and affect little in their path.
\nBy comparison, trash men are Gods.<\/p>\n
You live in Brooklyn?
\nStop everyone from circuit bending for a year, then take a look at your city.
\nYou won’t see any change. Not squat.
\nNow remove sanitation workers, food suppliers, city maintenance workers, garment workers, babysitters, laundry services, medical services, police, etc.
\nLikely then you’d see what people truly play a part in social needs, environmental needs and the like.
\nCircuit bending is very far down the list.
\nLosing a small exhibit at an art gallery or two will hardly affect many people at all.
\nTrue musicians will not have any problem expressing themselves if the occasional circuit bent toy is not available.
\nLife truly goes on without circuitbending.
\nIt’s impact is negligible.<\/p>\n
Let’s go farther and a bit sideways here…<\/p>\n
Many acclaimed artists are considered “triple threats.”
\nThey are singularly musicians, actors and dancers. They can do all three.
\nPrince, Madonna, Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, Sinatra (any of the rat pack.)
\nThese are extremely talented people that paid their dues and this combination is to be noted: Had they been massively talented, yet undisciplined, they likely wouldn’t be successful.
\nEqually, had they been very disciplined, yet poor artists, again they’d likely have not seen success.
\nIt’s only when a talented individual embarks on study and application do they usually succeed.
\nOnly when they can entertain large numbers of people can they effect change, whether it’s laughter, commerce or lasting art.
\nThe point of the triple threat mention is that the bar for talent used to be considerably higher.
\nIt used to take study, practice and discipline to get anywhere in the entertainment business.<\/p>\n
Of course there are exceptions and many more so today, but these acts usually don’t last.
\nFads based on novelty are nothing new, but novelty wears off.
\nYou’ll notice that we no longer see images by Andy Warhol all around, nor people pushing everyday images as “art.”
\nIt was done once and until we forget about it, it likely won’t take hold again.
\nWarhol was first, was original, popular and thus locked it up for himself, even past his own death.<\/p>\n
An example:
\nIf I say “The Three Stooges” to you, you likely think of well, THE Three Stooges.
\nBut consider the format: three ugly guys slapping each other, telling jokes and getting into mischief.
\nHey, that sounds very easy to do, doesn’t it?
\nThere’s no shortage of guys who can do that, right?
\nThe originals are long dead, right?
\nOk. Fine.
\nBut why do we not see more versions of the Three Stooges?
\nBecause it’s been done before.
\nAnything attempting that same format would be considered unoriginal, deriviative or plagiaristic.
\nThese are all widely considered to be negative qualities.
\nBecause of this effect, no one touches doing the Stooges.
\nIt’s off the plate. Untouchable.<\/p>\n
When art lasts past the artist’s short life, then it may well be considered art and not a fad.
\nThat’s the reason art is art. It is original. It’s novel and fresh. It’s a 1st… and it lasts.<\/p>\n
And this is also why circuit bending so badly fails at both usefulness and true art.
\nIt doesn’t have an ability to be marketed and if duplicated would provide little functionality or usefulness.
\nFew people appreciate it because it’s not a very capable medium.
\nIt has very little useful aspects .
\nThis is a dead end. It can’t grow or go very far.
\nThe artists performing it don’t end up with a product that’s so unique it’s legacy will outlast the person who did it.
\nIf you died tomorrow, your circuit bent collection would likely not be hailed as the legacy of a serious artist.<\/p>\n
Circuit bending always starts with something done fully, then subtracts or adds to it.
\nMany circuit bent items can’t even do what they were originally designed to do.
\nThey sometimes actually lose their originally designed capability in the process of some circuit bending attempts.
\nWhat is the result?
\nA device that does something different than intended simply for the point of making it do something different.
\nNow if that difference is truly spectacular, great.
\nThere’s your audience and thus your marketability.
\nYou’ve justified your time and created value where none existed before.<\/p>\n
But otherwise, you the artist, the circuit bender, usually end up with more of your art than others do and the time spent is rarely covered to the point of positive gain.
\nYou might survive therefore, but it’s doubtful you’d grow.
\nOne can’t mass market the devices, nor create much demand.
\nIt’s all one on one and very limited in the ability to affect anything to any large degree.<\/p>\n
It’s quite like tagging.
\nIf I was a tagger and sprayed up a wall near me, I could look at it often and derive some sort of pleasure from it.
\nMy friends that “get it” would also appreciate it in my small social world. I would feel important to my peers.
\nBut in the larger context of the world, it doesn’t mean anything. Nothing at all.
\nThree blocks away, no one even knows and showing them won’t elicit a desire for the same in their neighborhood.
\nAsked, they very likely wouldn’t want it at all.
\nIt’s limited, widely unappreciated and only endorsed by a small, like-minded population.
\nYet those in the group doing it, think it’s important and will even die or kill for it.
\nWhen was the last time a dead tagger made the nightly news?<\/p>\n
Yet had these taggers something more meaningful to do, something with skills that made some money or helped someone, then they could be responsible members of.. there’s that word again… society.
\nBut they don’t. This is what they do. It’s a beginning and end unto itself.
\nThat wall won’t grow and the world will never know if it. It’s limited and again, a dead end.<\/p>\n
Indeed, circuit benders practice much of this same sort of denial.
\nBecause they haven’t the skills, they defend their art and call it important.
\nThey gather with others who practice the same.
\nThey stay apart and often shunned from the greater musical world.
\nThe NAMM show doesn’t feature them, music stores don’t carry their instruments and in general they are a very minor subset of an already minor electronic music genre.
\nYet they believe they are socially important, musically important and educationally important?
\nThis just isn’t true and circuit bending has failed in all three of these aspects.
\nIt is a dead end because it cannot grow past its own inherent self-limitations.
\nIt cannot create valid enough musical tones to be a featured instrument.
\nIt cannot help create jobs and industries.
\nIt cannot help educate people past its own limitations.<\/p>\n
Circuit bending is a big bag of fail.
\nThe sooner you and others realize this, the sooner you can get to doing something truly important, useful and helpful.
\nUntil then, I consider it self-indulgent electronic masturbation.
\nGreat for the person doing it; useless to most others.<\/p>\n
–Kevin Lightner, early 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wishful thinking. Unproven and desperately in need of factually cited examples. Many original musicians have sold (individually) 10’s of million of albums and sold out huge arenas and stadiums. Merchandising in the form of movies, games, clothes and other tangible commerce comes along with it. With each artist or act, there comes a huge amount […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37,29,9,18],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","tag-circuit-bending","tag-electronics","tag-ideas-2","tag-kevin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221,"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synthfool.com\/kevin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}