21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Nic Barton
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?
The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?
From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.
In the second to last manifesto from the term, Nic Barton asserts that art and artist are bound by and to the form of expression they meet within, includes digital technology. As such, the old expectations of the audience persist: art must transcend time.
To be an artist is to be the art.
There is no separation between the painter and the canvas / between the writer and the language / between the author and the paper / between the dancer and the movements / between the sculptor and the marble—substitute whatever you like, and the sentiment remains.
When one chooses to be an artist, whether it is a passion or a fallback, they sign their soul away to the Muses. They mold your flesh into communion with your creation. Imago dei—you are the god of your little work. There is no escaping the universe you have made.
There is no separation between artist and art. If you agree to the Muses’ contract, you are bound to your creation forever.
If you choose to create technological work, you do not become technology. You are still, however, bound to the work.
A computer is another form of a pen. We have seen our writing and drawing utensils shift in centuries: fingers scratching in the dirt, chalk and charcoal, feather quills and ink. Just because a technology of creation has become a computer does not mean that it is any less of a utensil.
When the computer writes, it is merely a reflection of its code. When a computer codes, it is merely a reflection of its coder. In the same way that a writer is an artist, a coder is an artist.
Just because an art form is not “traditional” in the dimensional sense, does not mean that it is any less artistic.
A computer is not an artist. Until it develops sentience, it will always be a tool and never a creator.
There is no separation between the art and the artist. Your work is a direct representation of you, and you are a direct representation of your work. What you choose to portray is entirely your choice, but you need to be accountable to the choices that may be seen negatively.
That being said, your art must be able to stand on its own. Though you may create art as political and biased as you desire, it cannot be the only draw to your creation. One should be able to take away every bias in an artwork, and have it still stand as a unique creation.
To quote Oscar Wilde, art should also exist for its own sake. As a reflection of the world and its people, the only responsibility of art is to reflect. Even the creation of something is ultimately a reflection.