A presumptuous rant.

It’s hard to make money as an artist in Australia without being one of the lucky dozen or so that distribute their works to the entire world through some horrific global corporate machinery because our society expects everyone to be generating a certain minimum level of GDP, which raises the cost of living beyond that which an artist could previously afford based on just gigging around, selling paintings, etc.

One might argue that the presence of all this extra money floating around would filter down to the artists. Not necessarily true. People are so distracted from their surroundings and their day to day lives that they gobble up drooling mouthfuls of sulphuric soulless anti-art from the sinister underground pop-factories rather than opening their eyes to art that is relevant, interesting and actually has something to say about the real world.

Certainly I can’t complain personally about the cushy life that selling out to the capitalist system has afforded me. However, in aggregate, I can’t help but feel that our quality of life has taken a hit. It’s particularly sad that the narrow, conservative band of information delivered to most people via TV and Radio results in me being surrounded by frickin’ morons who I can’t stand.