THIS IS NOT ART - Friday 1st October

THIS IS NOT ART - Friday / NYWF Panels:-

Waking from my slumber as the sun rose at half past five, freezing in the chill and subsequently putting on more clothes and falling back asleep, until finally waking once more a few hours later coated in my own sweat - oh, the luxuries of sleeping in a tent! Rise, change, clean, eat, prepare, move out, buy sunglasses, make way to event one; and TINA Day 2 was ready for a proper start. You know, the kind of start that values intelligent discussion over sweaty situations. Unless we can create a sweaty/intelligent 2-hit combo for early morning TINA 2011, that is. Library Athletics, anyone?

Critical Animals, the self-criticising (yet not-quite-self-loathing) arm of TINA held a housewarming party to give Friday a jovial start, but I decided to be fashionably late, hence buying those sunglasses. I arrived in time for the majority of the first panel of the day, “Critiquing Criticism: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better”. The topic of criticism and the critic came up a few times across several panels throughout days 2 and 3 of TINA (I’m actually from the future, don’t tell anyone), so as the introduction to all panels to come, it was quite relevant. The panel discussion focused around various mediums of criticism, but I mainly picked up on that of music criticism, particularly the idea that reviews and music criticism can be viewed as two separate entities. Are they? Of course, a review can (and should) encompass criticism and under that thought they might be considered one in the same, but if a review is designed for a particular audience in mind (fans of the artist, people who have never heard of the artist, musicians, other writers), does it lack an integral element of criticism which occurs from writing without constraint of ‘audience’ or the demographic of your publication?

I quickly contemplated these questions before doing a runner (a fashionable runner in my Dunlop Volleys) to dig into the second half of “Ethical Magazine Making“. This panel discussed a variety of ethical issues surrounding writers and publishers, one of these topics asking the panel members (who were mostly magazine editors) about pay parity across different forms of writing. In this case, the panel members spoke of instances where poetry was paid at about half the rate of longform article writing (both fiction and non-fiction). Does this devalue poetry in comparison to article writing? Loaded questions are my favourite kind of questions.

These topics segued into the next panel “What are you Worth?”, discussing what freelance writers should charge for their work, alongside the topics of internships and contracts. While no consensus was reached upon what amount freelancers should charge for their work (though, ‘as much as you can get away with’ was popular), the subject that an increasing number of (young) writers are writing for free became a hot topic. The idea that if too many writers are writing for free, this can indicate to publications that writers don’t need to be valued or paid well if there are younger writers who are willing to write for free, simply to get published. The main trouble with this is that young, and particularly unexperienced, writers still require a way to gain this experience and build a portfolio, so resorting to writing for free is usually a necessity.

At the town hall, the satisfying “Whats Published?” seemingly tried to legitimise blogging as a relevant form of writing, and to a lesser extent, publishing. The topic swayed between the differences of a publisher/company-created ‘authority’ and a (perhaps undetermined) authority of bloggers. The issue was of trust - how can readers trust a blogger to be honest, and clear of agenda? It made me think of an editorial question raised on the international music website Tiny Mix Tapes, which tried to ignite discussion around the topic of ‘are music labels established by music-blogs ethical’; and their validity if conflict of interest issues hover over both their work as a blog and a music label.

So what‘s with this URL hotlinking? Essentially, an in-joke: it‘s a subtle and satirical swipe at a particular discussion that occurred at this panel. This heated debate between audience member(s) and panel member(s) was centered around the idea of monetising blogs, but particularly around the subject of utilising paid weblinks to link back to brand websites. Personally, I feel it cheapens both the blog and its content, and liken it to paid product placement in films. If we’re trying to take our art seriously, then it is counterproductive to present our output as merely fodder for marketing and innocuous advertising - especially advertising that isn’t disclosed. It can damage the trust of both the blogger and the outlet, and hence I can’t see N&W&T&S ever utilising such a model, even if it were to bring in some financial help. If bloggers are trying to legitimise their format, undisclosed advertising littered throughout their work can only be harmful to the medium as a whole. It was certainly the most interesting debate of the day.

Lunch, networking, writing, relaxing; it was time for the Friday TINA Showcase gig at the Cambridge Hotel. It was pretty good, leaning towards experimental and electronic music, and finishing with some absolute party music with breakcore artist Jason Forrest. Look out for some proper coverage of the show on N&W&T&S later in the week.

&c.