Camus & 'Creative Rebellion'

Camus' concept that life and art share the same aim, "to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world", is important to my art practice in two key ways. The first being the responsibility attached to such a freedom- as each person lives and creates, they should do so with others' creative potential in mind. Second, any action which encourages agency can be seen as an artistic effort. Creativity and artistic expression are not just for an elite who sell their work, but rather for anyone brave enough to call themselves an artist, to represent a moment of clarity through something beautiful, to identify unity in a world that lacks coherence. If creative rebellion affirms a shared humanity, then solidarity is the sharing of that humanity.

You may question what relevance Camus’ concept has in today’s network society? My argument derives from the actions of individuals and governments today, through religion and politics, who continue to condense complexity and dismiss doubt, creating totalizing solutions to alleviate fear. Camus saw artistic creation as a means to relieve individuals of the need to know how it all fits together; which action to take to effect the greatest change, or where to stand amongst so much ambiguity. By putting emphasis on the act of creation, and the consequent freedom and responsibility created from that act, as artists we are able to begin to accept arts existence in every aspect of life. We are then free to critique the injustices created by the hierarchical systems of politics and art while accepting our inescapable complicity with in them.

In considering Camus’ framework for ‘creative rebellion’ , I have formulated two basic criteria which can be applied to the often vast and interweaving locale of (new)media arts in order to distinguish particular artists as ‘creative rebels’.

Firstly, works which engage the medium, whether this is exploring its materiality, history or social function. This means manipulating the technology beyond its original purpose, not being confined by already established understandings.
Second, works which consider ‘the other’, acknowledging the responsibility which comes with the freedom of welding such technologies.

I argue that artists have an obligation to consider all aspects of the technology they weld—whether it be sophisticated or primitive, digital or analogue, ”well-behaved” or otherwise. If technology is an extension of humanity then it follows that its creators also have some level of responsibility to both its art and artifice.