Gold: PressPausePlay documentary

This documentary is worth watching and feeling a bit sad, concerned, inspired, and probably a few more emotions. It doesn't provide answers per se, and I think this poses a challenge for the Christian artist and audience to use his/her biblical worldview to understand the phenomena addressed and to act accordingly. I was personally challenged to consider how I have been consuming, critiquing, and creating art (particularly spoken word). I pray that I will not settle for mediocrity, not just because mediocre art isn't as enjoyable, but because God is not mediocre. When watching, keep in mind Phil Ryken's comment in Art for God's Sake that  “the standards from artistic goodness come from creation itself […] it comes from God as a part of his general revelation.” (pg. 38-9). 

(And I was excited to see one of my favorite artists, Ólafur Arnalds, featured!)

PressPausePlay

About the Documentary:
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era.
www.PressPausePlay.com  


A few memorable quotes:

“The human spirit, when it’s allowed to become made manifest through art, invariably is going to create greatness. It almost doesn’t matter what the medium is,…when humans make things, they tend to make interesting things…The danger is people becoming comfortable with mediocrity.”

- Moby, Artist

“It used to be that you didn’t become an artist to become rich. You became an artist because you had an idea to share, because you had an emotion to share. And that’s where we are heading again. And we’re going to see more people do more art in more ways than ever before.”

-       Seth Godin, Author, Unleashing the Idea Virus

“Ideas that spread win.”

-       Seth Godin

“Almost everybody I meet in the world of art, music, literature, creative expression…everybody’s equally excited and afraid. No one really knows where their next paycheck is coming from, but they’re really excited at their ability to create work and communicate directly with an audience.”

-       Moby, Artist

“We are on the verge of a new dark age. The creative world is destroyed. All we have is cacophony and self opinion. We have a crisis of democratized culture.”

-       Andrew Keen, Author, The Cult of the Amateur

“We are at a time when artists have the power.”

-       Brenda Walker, Music Producer, DJ

“I’m totally up for the democratization of anything […] it moves things along.”

“When you fall into the trap of confusing the artist and the audience, when you believe that the audience knows more than the artist—is more authoritative, is more creative, is more talented—then art ends. Then you have something else. You have a cacophony. You have simply an apology for radical democratization. And it’s wrong to confuse democratization in cultural or political terms with the creation of art, which is by definition, for better or worse, an elitist business.”

-       Andrew Keen

“So for a serious, young filmmaker these are very, very depressing times. When you leave everything to the crowd, when everything becomes democratized, where everything is determined by number of clicks, you’re by definition undermining the seriousness of the artistic endeavor.”

-       Andrew Keen

“If everybody’s a musician, and everybody is making mediocre music, eventually the world is just covered in mediocrity, and people start to become comfortable with mediocrity. And that to me is the danger.”

- Moby, Artist

“One of the most fascinating aspects of the digital revolution on the creative process is how it separated, to an extent, knowledge of craft and creativity.”

-       Moby

“Younger musicians, and some older musicians I’ve seen do this too, rely too much on the technology. They give a substandard, a subpar performance and they expect the technology to compensate for it.”

-       Nick Sansano, Music Producer

“The craft is no longer necessary.”

“I personally find perfection in art and music to be really off-putting. I like listening to Billie Holiday because there’s vulnerability […] I get really intimidated and bored by perfect digital art.”

-       Moby

“I remember when I was a kid I went out and bought a record, and it was this moment of pure concentration and joy of listening to every little bit and looking through the vinyl and watching the vinyl turn around with the needle and the groove. It was sort of a full kind of concentration. And now I always do something else when I listen to music.”

“I think the live show is what’s going to keep music dangerous.”

“I think a lot of musicians are now increasingly compelled to figure out how to stand on stage and connect with an audience whereas before the connection was playing the one hit single that the audience might have heard on the radio, and now the connection has to be a lot more genuine and, I think, a lot more human in a way.”

-       Moby