Abstract
Human beings have been creative, and made things, for many thousands of years. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the first human tools were made almost two million years ago (Donald, A mind so rare: the evolution of human consciousness. W. W. Norton, New York, 2001). Digital technologies and the internet have not initiated creativity, therefore, but they have certainly given creative practices a boost, by enabling several things to be achieved much more simply and quickly: connections between people, distribution of material, conversations about it, collaborations, and opportunities to build on the work of others.
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Notes
- 1.
If you are a stranger to this cultural reference, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor’s_New_Clothes
- 2.
Unintentionally influenced, perhaps, by the 1999 Billie Piper #1 pop hit of the same name.
- 3.
The Veronica Mars Movie Project page on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project. Actor and director Zach Braff was inspired by this and raised $3.1 million for his feature film Wish I Was Here a month later (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869987317/wish-i-was-here-1). Spike Lee also launched a fundraising effort in July 2013, raising $1.4 million for his next film project (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spikelee/the-newest-hottest-spike-lee-joint).
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
A simple way of thinking about the economics of this kind of thing was offered by Kevin Kelly in 2008, in a blog post entitled ‘1,000 True Fans’. Kelly suggests that a creator ‘needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living’. A ‘True Fan’ is defined as ‘someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce’. Kelly explains:
Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day’s wages per year in support of what you do. That ‘one-day-wage’ is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let’s peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.
This sounds promising, although in subsequent posts (‘The Reality of Depending on True Fans’ and ‘The Case Against 1,000 True Fans’) Kelly had to admit that for artists bumping along at this level of success, with no security and a rather continuous need to generate products or ticket sales to avoid the drift into poverty, this is an uncomfortable existence. Conversely, as one commenter said:
In the old environment most musicians weren’t making any money anyway or had debts to the record companies. And they did not have control over rights [to their own work]. At least some things have changed for the better now. (‘Max’, 11 May 2010)
Certainly, a lot of comments on these posts referred to the pleasure of control over an artistic career, and ‘making a living’ from it, with a meaningful connection to some people who love the work, even if the artist is not having big hits.
- 8.
MaKey MaKey is described on its Kickstarter page as ‘a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything inbetween’, and in June 2012, the project exceeded its fundraising target by 2,272 % (with $568,106 pledged against a mere $25,000 goal). See http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joylabs/makey-makey-an-invention-kit-for-everyone and http://www.makeymakey.com
- 9.
This quotation is from the notes I made in advance, rather than what was actually said. The video of the talk can be seen at: http://fora.tv/2013/09/22/six_amazing_things_about_making
- 10.
Discussion of the origins of the phrase can be found at http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/a/consciousness_raising.htm
- 11.
This bit about Dougald Hine and the School of Everything is a summary of some material that previously appeared in Gauntlett (2011).
- 12.
This bit about the Kuznetsov and Paulos study draws on an account of the study that I first wrote in Gauntlett et al. (2012).
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Gauntlett, D. (2015). The Internet Is Ancient, Small Steps Are Important, and Four Other Theses About Making Things in a Digital World. In: Zagalo, N., Branco, P. (eds) Creativity in the Digital Age. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6681-8_2
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