21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Vincent Arellanes
Photo by Clever Visuals 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.
To close out the first week of manifestos, Vincent Arellanes ponders what we are stewarding when we set out to create art and what that may mean in our current context.
As a young writer I have measured my own abilities based on the role that I play when it comes to the installment of literary literature. In order to be a “writer” I needed to create and be recognized because of this creation. Throughout my life I have written many pieces of literature, but because I lack the recognition of this art does that make me only half of a writer? Are authors who have been published the only artists allowed to be called writers? At what point will I be given the social card that labels me “writer?” Many questions, such as these, formulate within my mind making me less and less hopeful that I will be worthy enough to obtain this type of status. Unfortunately, this is exactly what society does. They make you think that you are appraised based on contribution. In reality literature has more of a role for us than we have for it. “Literature helps us better understand our lives, ourselves, and the world around us. Encounters with literature develop the concepts of identification, imagination, and empathy” (Gustavus).
Throughout the ages these concepts stay stagnant in order to help writers through literature. The advancement of technology has raised many questions about literature's usefulness to writers and how technology may shift the artist's conception of these concepts. Literature is accessible everywhere, at an instant, allowing audiences to read and watch art within seconds. How does this affect motivation, authenticity, or even the way of art reaching people? I may not have a firm answer to this question, but I do see the possible benefits that technology or AI can have for writers. Brainstorming has never been easier for a writer, and motivation has never been more available. Technology should be used as an aid/resource for writers, nothing more. The more power we implement within AI the more temptation writers will have to abuse this power. Technology is always going to be a tool, and we are the users who determine if this tool is used properly.
Art, especially within literature, changes all the time but we, the creators of this art, need to make sure that it doesn’t lose its beauty. Pain, happiness, fear, and excitement are the feelings that make the process of writing so wonderful. Once we take that away and substitute it with something that is inauthentic, then we are given art without substance. The relief found within the hardships of creating literature are the milestones that make art worthwhile. This cannot be found within a system that regurgitates the work put into it.