Creativity and Consumption: Part one
In the 2004 Richard Linklater film, Before Sunset, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are sitting at a café, as their characters Jesse and Celine. Reunited after spending a night together nine years earlier. As is their M.O. they are moving through a range of topics quite naturally some deeper than others, but all concerned with the human experience. At one point, Celine tells Jesse about her time in Warsaw, when it was a Communist country. She talks about being in a place where she didn’t understand what she saw on television, was free of advertising and was able to switch off. She explains it to Jesse like this, ‘My brain was at rest, free from the consuming frenzy.’
An experience I only imagine many of us could get today from entering a retreat, shunning all digital devices, or avoiding humans. All of which are impractical and quite extreme.
Interacting with media is a two-part process. There is, as expected, the consumption and following on from this, the reception. Both steps in the process are influenced by the audience and the society in which this interaction takes place. Consumption is about the social, cultural, and technological influences over the way we read media products. Reception, however, is about how we engage with the media and, how that then influences what meaning we take from it.
I have read these definitions many times, but I still find it hard to unpack each element that has a result on how we watch media, and what we take from it. So much of this process happens subconsciously that we are unaware. For example, if we are streaming something and the Wi-Fi stops, that is a social, cultural and technological issue. We are often frustrated feeling that the Wi-Fi shouldn’t have stopped because we pay for it to work, or annoyed we got caught out using someone else’s internet, or pissed off because it ruined the mood. Perhaps we don’t even notice because we were too busy texting or whatever. Each of these then mean different things depending on our expectation of our internet set up. And this is only one element, regardless of what happens when we unpack the meaning that we feel is being conveyed.
This week I am at home with Covid. I took two days off at the end of last week. The RATs I took were negative and I just assumed I had a cold, or maybe the flu was coming. One day off, I watched a couple of films, Gilmore Girls and a bit of CSI. During my second day off, I watched a couple more films, Gilmore Girls and Brooklyn 99. I was trying to keep myself occupied but not completely commit. The weekend was coming up and I didn’t want to be stuck in some series I had become addicted to. Late on the Friday night, I tested again, and it was positive. After a little cry, I realise my approach had to change. I was no longer sprinting. I was running a marathon.
So in that moment, I decided that during this isolation I would only watch or read things I hadn’t seen or read before. It could be videos from a YouTuber I liked, but no repeats, no getting stuck in a CSI shaped hole, or watching Sleepless in Seattle, regardless of the amount of comfort it bought me. There were two main reasons for doing this. Firstly, being unwell is a confusing time and I didn’t want to be in some Groundhog Day haze because that can make me feel worse. Secondly, I like to set myself little tasks and challenges, simply for something to do. So, starting on the Saturday I started fresh.
During this time, I have been very much caught up on the relationship between consuming and creating. In this context I am thinking about media, but it could be cooking and eating, painting, and looking, talking, and listening.
Pondering on the fine balance between taking it all in, ruminating on it, and making the time to produce something out of it. Because all the consuming we do, it doesn’t simply evaporate. It influences us, socially culturally and even technologically.
There is only so much we can take in, surely.
Although, society says otherwise, I am not sure that posting one Instagram post for every thousand we see really balances us out. I listen to hours of music but have never written a song. Perhaps it is too simplistic to think it is a one in, one out system. It’s not that if I see a beautiful painting I think that I too must paint, but rather I too need to create, in whichever form I know how.
Friday’s post will focus on Creativity and Creating.