Part 1) Origin: No Ethical Behavior Under Capitalism
The moment "culture” became an “industry”, creative people were disempowered and made dependent upon a structure they did not control.
While it has undergone significant technological change, this structure, built by and for “suits” - businessmen, bankers, advertisers, propagandists, etc. - is still in use to this day, controlling and extracting profit from the public. How does it work? Bosses and creditors steal value from workers during production, then jack-up prices on so-called “consumers”, effectively squeezing the industry from both ends in order to sequester surpluses (profits) for themselves.
On a large scale, these dynamics of control, influence, coercion, and extraction have the net result of decreasing the productivity of artists, thus diminishing the quantity and quality of art available to the public, and simultaneously inflating the price to consume that art, deflating demand for these overpriced products (cough*concert tickets*cough) and in turn, deflating the overall economy - of which arts and culture comprise a very significant percentage.
What this reveals is that a hierarchically dominated “culture industry” makes society less culturally and economically vibrant, not more. It is a system that is bad for everyone but owners and creditors: the upper-class.
Dominance hierarchies have another effect: shifting the intent of creative work from expression to careerism. With profitability being a matter of survival, artists are pushed into a desperate, adversarial, hoarder’s mindset, displacing other forms of motivation like our shared need for connection and social support. This is the predictable result of the same financial austerity and imposed scarcity that are used to repress the workforce, and which keep all of us preoccupied with our individual survival, individual ambitions, and maladaptive coping mechanisms (consumerism et al.)
This coercive force, the top-down ‘violence of the market’, is portrayed to us as a passive phenomena, as if it were as natural as the wind or the rain: but it is not. The “option” to either conform and obey, or starve and die, is a threat, not a free choice. This nebulous threat hovers over us chronically, and is yet another factor limiting and impeding our collective well-being, coercing us into acting against our own best-interest.
The worldview which sees such a threat as necessary is built on the assumption that human nature is inherently bad, and that authoritarianism is therefore needed to guide humans toward “the good”. This sees people as incapable of managing their own affairs, begging the question “if people are incapable of managing their own interests, how could anybody be capable of managing the interests of others?”
Clearly, our existing culture industry and socioeconomic model are very literally making us less imaginative, less innovative, less productive, less autonomous, less fulfilled, less connected, and more psychologically, physiologically, and sociologically dysregulated.
Why are we still doing things this way? Because of a deficit in imagination, organizing, and capital.
Part 2) Taking Action
What is ESD.WORLD?
ESD.WORLD is the production studio for the initiatives supported by the Society for the Advancement of Radical Arts (SARA). Future Now! is the vehicle for exhibiting this work.
Click here to view our initiatives. Click here to join or login to SARA. Click here to view Future Now!
Concept
Starting young, we are trained to do as we are told. Gradually, our window of possibility narrows as we learn not to imagine the impermissible.
But we don’t need permission to build. So let’s build something of our own for once. Something like a parallel society in which autonomy has been resurrected and redistributed, where humanity can be mutually facilitated instead of governed and managed.
How? Many artists now crowdfund their solo careers using online platforms… Well, why not take the same model but apply it to something new: solving the problems created by the culture industry?
This is our function: supporting artists, supporting a culturally enriched society, promoting forms of creative expression that do not conform to dictatorial logic such as the logic of profit maximization, and sharing in this collaborative endeavor with the public to demonstrate the efficacy of such a concept, and to encourage others to take similar action.
Such grassroots arts organizations will only becoming increasingly relevant as AI is used to commandeer the digital media landscape - and our lives and well-being along with it.
Purpose (The Pursuit of Happiness)
Services (Serving Artists, Serving Fans, Serving Culture)
Re-Distribution of Value (see our Value-Flow Illustration here.)
Creating and Sharing Radical Cultural Artifacts
Organizational Structure
ESD / SARA / FUTURE NOW! / ACF / People
Concept
ABOUT
Many recording artists today choose to crowdfund their solo careers in favor of becoming indebted through a recording contract.
The adoption of crowdfunding platforms has helped to eliminated some gatekeepers from the industry, but the burden of financing a nascent-career still falls on the shoulders of individual artists, thus reproducing pre-existing socioeconomic divisions on the basis of access to capital.
In our age of economic predators, the likelihood of getting a return on an investment into a music career is close to zero.
But what if we collectively shouldered that burden? Why not build our own system with our own interests in mind?
This question upends the normative business model of the music industry, counteracting the disproportionate power relationships that keep our culture chained to the yoke of capital and that prevent exploration, free expression, and true understanding of the human experience. Time will tell what such an idea is capable of.
ESD.WORLD was founded and is operated by the interdisciplinary artist Hapiru, an escapee from the Imperial Core.
Hapiru derives their name from the A’piru, ancient peoples who rejected undesirable ways of living and opted for unknown and untested alternatives. Forming their own enclaves in the fringes, these people created their own liberty, outside the grasps of authoritarian control.
ESD.WORLD (pronounced “e-ess-dee-dot-world”) is a kind of experimental art project. Think of it as a virtual sculpture, constructed from its initiatives and the web of relationships between us, readers and contributors alike.
This experiment is set up to examine whether a socialist business model is feasible, as well as whether it can sufficiently support creative industry (industriousness) to assist in re-distributing autonomy and in reshaping the cultural and socioeconomic landscape.
Organizational Structure
Initiatives:
ESD.WORLD is an umbrella organization for the initiatives supported by the Society for the Advancement of Radical Arts. For now, this includes:
Audio Mastering - The first of several free services we plan to offer.
Future Now! - The multimedia publisher distributing the work of ESD.WORLD and its affiliates.
Residencies - We want to host a series of residencies around the world, connecting audiences with the artists we host, and with the global communities which host us. Imagine a cross between Anthony Bourdain’s show “Parts Unknown” and Jon Makes Beats or Kenny Beats on YouTube. The idea is to promote international solidarity through shared cultural exchange.
SARA - The Society for the Advancement of Radical Arts is a collective of like-minded fans, artists, and supporters who are disenchanted with the current culture industry, whose support and creative involvement make the initiatives of ESD.WORLD possible. Humans are a social species. Our power lies in our unique ability to communicate and work together toward abstract goals. Let’s put that into practice for something other than producing micro-plastics and mass-graves.
ACF - The Anti-Capitalist Fund is a separate entity that is not financially or legally connected to ESD.WORLD or any of its subsidiaries. It is a sister-organization, aiming to combat the disempowerment of the working class.
People: