Note to self: it’s not about our comfort.

I can feel horrified by commercial media. Not only by the quality of the work and the implicit assumptions in popular entertainment about their audience. But also by the presentation of these media in press and stores.

I cannot picture the display of my work in that context. I find it demeaning to have to present our sincere art in a context where everything is trash on purpose. Throwaway entertainment, ironic fun, self-mocking ugliness, made-for-profit junk.

When I feel this way, I suddenly understand those artists who, despite of working with computers, flee to the safe confines of the museums and the galleries, where their work can be presented with some dignity.

But that is not where the people are. And when one works in a medium that has the potential to reach a wide audience, as an artist, I feel one has the obligation to use it as such. To put one’s work out there, to show it to people, next to doing one’s best to make the work intellectually and emotionally accessible.

So that is why we have to clench our teeth when looking at the context of our work. In our mind, we picture our work next to that of artists we admire, and hope to find a place in their shadows. But in reality it is presented next to popular junk that we have no respect for, that was not made to be respected, that is just consumer products made without emotional sensitivity or intellectual concern.

It’s so tempting to run away from it all! To walk the moral high ground and not participate in the military-industrial-entertainment complex. We don’t have to do this. We don’t need the money. We don’t need the fame. We don’t get any proper critical response anyway. But if we were to retire to the ivory tower/concrete bunker of high art, we would actively take away the choice that people have. And then all is lost.

We need to continuously remind ourselves: It’s not about our comfort. We are doing this for other people. That means that our work should be presented in places where those people can find it. We shouldn’t expect respect from those places, or to feel comfortable in them. That is irrelevant. What matters is that people have at least a chance to find our work. So that they can choose to make their life better. To make life better.