I don’t know if I like or dislike Yuval and Rachel’s documentary. I haven’t seen it and, given my schedule, unfortunately I probably won’t have time.
Therefore, I don’t actually know what message they are encoding: The IDF committed genocide in Gaza? The IDF used “collateral damage” to legitimize the unnecessary deaths of thousands of children? Something else?
I am usually agnostic when I don’t feel reasonably sure about a claim. For three years, my brain and my conscience have not let me accept the ubiquitous accusation of genocide – the evidence doesn’t support it and the trivialization of the crime is perverse.
But holy fck do we need artists like Rachel and Yuval!
Artists are not here to reinforce our preexisting opinions or support our comfortable delusions or cater to our aesthetic notions.
Art is supposed to make. us. uncomfortable.
Like it, dislike it, develop an entire theory as to why it’s Wrong – but if it pulled you out of your comfort zone and made you uncomfortable with your myths then art did its job.
That is what we need from the artist – an expression of a world beyond the surfaces of our daily constructed experience – which is produced by the material conditions and social institutions of our age – to subvert that experience, disrupt it enough so that a higher light from beyond can enter the cracks.
Note! This is not why an artist creates – at least, not with this emphasis. For the artist, art is a way of organizing, metabolizing, building their world. Perhaps they intend to meet the visitor to their world on the canvas or in the guitar or on the big screen – perhaps not. The artist is as entitled to their creativity as they are to their body or their breath.
But when the intent is there – when we, the community of sentient beings, are not just invited by but confronted with art – then the power of art extends beyond the rectification of any one soul through to the depths of the collective consciousness of The People.
Which is all to say – artists speaking their truth to power are essential to the health of any society large or small, and they deserve support, protection, and something akin to reverence – even if, when, we dislike their art and disagree with their messages and hate their freakin guts.
Calling an artist a “traitor” for making art that makes us uncomfortable – even art that can be seized and co-opted by reactionary politics and violent thugs – is the surest way to keep society buried under a lethal status quo.
Coda: This is all ALSO relevant to the open question of the artistic merits of algorithmically-generated outputs. All is one.