Back to Ephemeral: How Art Was Stripped of its Soul
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
It was around the time that I heard the umpteenth, slowed-down, dramatic cover of an old sixties, upbeat jingle in the local supermarket that I felt the pin — placed by the corporate machine — pressed into the fabric and stuffing of the voodoo doll representing my carcass for the last time. For the nearly thirty-five years of my life, I have felt the human connection with art (in both the fine and experimental spaces, and the entertainment realm) grow weaker and weaker. I cannot profess to be an expert in all things expressive, so for the majority of this outcry, I will defer to cinematic history as frequently as needed, and I will rely on this lifeline instantly. The very origins of film saw the medium as an ephemeral one: meaning that the shelf life of films was a short one and that they would be thrown away quickly. Films were almost like newspapers or Bazooka Joe comics: to be discarded once done with.
This mentality was found well before the talkies era that kicked off in 1927, as films were still gimmicky when they first captured everyday concepts or short stories; it was once film took off via the experimentations of innovators — and that we saw the artistic, narrative, and technical capabilities of the medium — that preservation became a priority. Even when films were being protected, many became lost because of fires, misplacements, and other damaging or obliterating concerns. Nonetheless, an effort was at least being made to protect what was in the present and what was to come.
Flash-forward one hundred years later (give or take), and that same focus on nurturing film (or many other forms of entertainment and art) is quite different (or non-existent, depending on who you ask). So many films that are given hundreds of millions of dollars to play with are jettisoned to die in the box office (or, even worse, straight to streaming), and most of these projects are based on franchises, are reboots, prequels, or sequels of existing properties, or are spinoffs that nobody asked for (and yet we are being force-fed all of these releases to the point of vomiting, or so it feels). Other original projects are never greenlit, or the rare few that are are given no support to thrive or resonate.
There are still great films being produced, in the same way that there is life in any other artistic medium. They’re not being promoted via the figurative — and literal — airwaves that have homogenized all forms of content into sludgy, liquid, processed baby food that gets digested by one eye and ear, digested via our brain — which is pushing it out as quickly as possible — and excreted out the other pair of sensory receptors. Think of how hip-hop, pop, and rock all sound so similar on the radio now, with extreme usage of auto-tune, nearly identical production qualities, tempos, and writing, and no room to stand out. Again, other music exists, and I’m not saying that it doesn’t.
We’re expected to make the effort to find the good out there, in the curiously ironic way that the art with the least effort is what gets pushed to the top.
Think of what social media algorithms favour, and how most major platforms and search engines have made looking for specific and/or new things a larger battle than they ever were. Many forms of entertainment and art, be they visual storytelling or music construction, are starting to fall under the “content creation” title and are forced to play with these ever-changing rules. Songs are shortened and are often quite repetitive to try and get picked up by TikTok users’ videos. Much is lost in translation from films and series (which are intended for widescreen or square aspect ratios, depending on the medium and era) when their sides are cropped to smithereens in reels; it’s not the apps that have to adapt, it’s the uploader who must now Frankenstein the video clip via cropping and splicing to best suit the social media Gods. Much regarding art as a form of expression that stands alone must now adapt to even “matter” in the day and age of social media.
In order to beat this algorithm and venture forth not as a content creator but as a connoisseur of art and entertainment, you’ll have to do a lot of digging past suggested advertisements and content that is optimized for search engines: a crying shame considering the once limitless horizons of the information superhighway and the intention to have access to anything; we still do, but we have to do a bit of an awkward pivot and foxtrot past pushed content and information in order to find what we truly want (if it isn’t in favour of the algorithm, anyway). Who wants to go the extra mile in the day and age of constant existential dread, developing warfare, overpopulation woes, economic collapse, climate concerns, and a constant divide that pushes us further when technology was once bringing us closer together?
Art shouldn’t have to be a chore to discover, but it’s become one, and people are rightfully complacent given the exhaustion we deal with daily. It’s why people resort to whatever is being given to them, and it’s only letting lazy corporations and companies — who rely on this defeat so people can accept whatever is right in front of them — get away with this theft of purity. When a movie theatre is forced to show the same high-budgeted film in regular cinemas, Imax, AVX, D-Box, et cetera, et cetera, how many cinemas are free to show much else? This evaporation of competition is a full-on strategy.
It’s disheartening for artists as well far beyond just this doomed fate (or even the lack of being greenlit at all). Consider a musician who gets paid next to nothing from most streaming services, can never make it big enough to tour or play to adequately sized audiences, or has avenues like Bandcamp that were once bastions of the freedom to create (and are now either dropping like flies or are being bought out and forced to negate their initial motives). How many people are even inspired to make art if many of us are becoming uninspired to discover more art (outside of what is being force-fed to us)? Meanwhile, the same formula-tested stuff is being churned out, as if we are meant to be satisfied eating porridge every single meal, all hours of the day. At the risk of sounding pretentious and arrogant (a curse I always wish to avoid), how could anyone feel fulfilled by this? I understand people having their comforts and not wanting to stray away from them, but — in this day and age — most aren’t even picking what new releases comfort them.
What’s on the menu now is the aforementioned, hacky tradition of slowing down covers of older songs and relying on what once worked to work again (this time, the meal is microwaved and barely reminiscent of the flavour it once had). Interpolations and samples in music are lazier than ever and have zero intended reinvention (and all of the recognizability to bank off of alone). Film and television are hardly different with derivative spinoffs or franchise revitalizations weighing heavily on the market. Too many people flock to what they already know, further allowing this cycle to continue.
A Ghostbusters film where Egon is getting a vasectomy for twelve real-time hours with the music of JoJo Siwa playing five pitches higher the entire time will have no bearing of what the original film accomplished, and yet many will see it nonetheless because it bears the Ghostbusters name, narrows down the already slim amount of options down to one choice, and will guarantee fans of the franchise at least a minute slice of nostalgia and fandom. It’s dishonest, and yet we keep falling for these tricks (ignoring the hyperbolic example I gave, of course). No wonder why many artists aren’t feeling inspired to push themselves. Unless you are beating a dead horse or resorting to mindlessness, you aren’t going to even sniff success (if you’re discovered at all).
With many artists not having a leg to stand on anymore, they now have a bigger battle which I cannot help but wonder if the entertainment industry has been anticipating this threat for eons now: artificial intelligence. With AI basing all of its gestations off of the work of others (and the prompts we feed it, hence more human encouragement), we’re getting what we’re already been suffocated with: recycled bullshit. This time, it’s even worse. The industry and its clients have been conditioned to create and accept synthetic, commingled ideas. If anything, outside of the strikes last year, there’s been zero effort to slow down AI (certainly not on a governmental level); the Tribeca Film Festival is welcoming AI-generated shorts with open arms via a program. This is only the beginning. If you think art is soulless now, wait until AI becomes a primary form of content creation. It’s a damn shame that so many organizations and people in power have the capacity to slow down AI (it’s impossible to stop it at this rate) and aren’t doing so. It’s intentional. It always has been.
No wonder how they’re going to get away with this. We’ve become complicit to this shift. We’re not doing enough to combat this change. We accept whatever we get. We’re been worn down to the point of feeling forced to. Art and entertainment has become ephemeral again. We toss away what we’ve just digested in microseconds for the next suggested item. We scroll onto the next image or video. We just keep cycling through our entertainment and art to the point that we’re not getting acquainted with much of it at all anymore (nor do we want to with the majority of what we’re given). The real art is out there and begging to be discovered, loved, and supported. We must be in search of it again. We cannot let art and entertainment be completely taken over by these shifts. If you want to discover more, actually discover more.
Don’t just accept what is handed over to you. Don’t just rely on what you already love, because the industry is already banking on your nostalgia and the franchises and properties of yesteryear that you love. Dig deeper to find independent voices to hear what they have to say. Go to local film festivals. Immerse yourself in film communities. Don’t settle for what’s resting at the top. For the cinephiles who keep doing their own homework for what to watch, keep doing so and go even further. Don’t let the enrichment of art be stripped completely of its spirit.
We’ve become sheltered by media we are meant to chew and either spit or shit out instantly. We must encourage long-lasting, memorable experiences again. I know we’re jaded, but ignoring art and entertainment that takes us seriously, can open our eyes and hearts, and can keep pushing the industry and our capabilities as humans isn’t the answer. There may be a time in the future (near or distant) when this kind of art and entertainment is gone for good and we cannot get in touch with new forms of it ever again. We used to strive for more, but we — as in the industries and its customers — have stymied ourselves for years now, and our stunting is only getting worse. We were all about growth and venturing forth. Now that we have access to almost anything ever, that’s it?
We’re done caring about what is out there waiting to be untapped? We mustn’t be this way. We cannot let expression be shut up by the repetition of platitudes and clichés. Celebrate what makes us human via true connections between artist and spectator. Once the light in our forms of expression is gone for good, the light in us will disintegrate. Don’t let the human experience become the final thing to turn ephemeral in a world that is already okay with leaving others behind, throwing away the old, and destroying longevity.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.