That special type of clay
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 12:55PM For almost 20 years, I have watched as my subculture has been steadily, stealthily and skillfully co-opted by a new generation of large corporations that has siphoned the creative ambition of independent projects through mimicry and subsequent mass promotion. It's my job to fire up the cultural ambitions of the rest of us - of YOU, basically, now that you're reading this.
Interference with the basic law of nature -- that the People are the repository of true creativity -- has become easier with the consolidated control of society's cultural metabolism as effected by the Mass Media. A natural network of communication, intelligence, information and bias within the souls of society is rapidly being replaced by a systematic virulence on the behalf of corporate marketers that have figured out the trappings of alternative culture while still promoting their own consumerist and conformist agenda.
To route around this, and to fire up your ambitions on a neurological level, I have designed the following visualization.
Can thought be shaped? intelligence does not exist in physical reality, but our generation has become accustomed to existing in the virtual world. If you can close your eyes and envision your intelligence, right now, you can choose to visualize what you are looking at as a cube made of a special type of clay. You can see the imperfections in it, and then you can sculpt it with habit substitution, making new friends etc.
If it's possible to envision your own intelligence as something that can be shaped with your will and follow-up action, consider your scene. Consider your surroundings. Your "market" as it were. Can you sense the intelligence that pulses along the sidewalks and flows into the storefronts and through the post offices? If you can close your eyes and feel that pulsing network spread out from your feet, out your front door and from there clear across the world, that is the network. Now, take that same network - or more precisely, the specific portion of it that you care about - and fold it up. Fold it like the largest map possible. Feel the localized intensities where cities and hotspots of human activity emanate endless energy. Now that you've folded the map as much as possible, realize that it too is made of that special type of clay. And you can squeeze it down into a cube made of that same special type of clay. Just like your own intelligence. You can see the imperfections in it, and then you can sculpt it -- with custom vinyl stickers, for instance. :)
Custom stickers are one of the many ways you can hack society's pattern - or shape the clay that is your scene. Mass media is a mere placebo for true culture from the people -- so much more exciting than the "folk" moniker that is associated with individual creative productivity. Provide your scene with the fruits of your talent - actually promote your project! If you've got a creative project, you have forged a new tool for shaping your subculture. As you promote, you are shaping that special type of clay.
What are you trying to do with your project? What would you like the final sculpture to look like? Who do you want to affect? One of the things I love about the medium of custom vinyl stickers as the precision with which you can distribute your ideas. This kind of precision -- where you select carefully who and where your idea is deployed for maximum intended effect and minimum unintended negative consequences, such as bothering people who don't want to be promoted at -- just feels like sculpting to me, on a psychic level. What do you think?