Essay: The Cult of the Amateur

3. Digital media put the tools of production into the hands of the everyday computer user making it incredibly easy to produce content. These creative skills used to be something that people worked to develop. Now it appears that amateurs can produce content of a fair standard within a relatively short period of time. Where does this leave 'professionals' and highly skilled artists? Choose one area of creativity and discuss some of the challenges facing practitioners vs. amateurs in producing digital content.

The cult of the amateur is on the rise. The 21^st century is seeing a dramatic explosion in the field of amateur culture and creativity and the graphic design industry appears to be sitting on this cusp of cultural change. 1 This essay is born out of a curiosity into the challenges facing practitioners of the design industry. These challenges of course are the result of digital media putting the tools and power of production into the hands of amateurs. They include such things as finding a clear distinction between practitioners and amateurs in terms of critical thinking, recognition of qualification, a battle for employment and where they stand in market value. 

The definitions bow and break when trying to understand what a designer really is. Graphic design branches out into so many niche markets and the demographic ranges from the homespun computer savvy teenagers, to the academics, to the retired masters. So where do you draw the line between the professional and the amateur? 

The word ‘amateur’, derived from the Latin term ‘amator’, means to engage in without payment, a person considered contemptibly inept at a particular activity. 2 In the 21st century, the cult of the amateur has been facilitated by the ever-expanding growth in technology and media communications. Digital media has enhanced the ability to produce digital content without the need for prior experience within the field or even highly developed creative skills.

The challenge for finding a distinction between amateurs and professionals is a highly topical and lies in the method, content and process of their critical thinking. Andy Rutledge writes in his article ‘Professional Thinking’ 3 that “the difference between how a professional chess player thinks and how an amateur chess player thinks is largely responsible for the most significant difference in their respective results. It’s the same for Web designers.” He develops the idea that there must be a clear distinction between amateur behaviour and professional behaviour among web and graphic designers and even more fine-lined, a clear distinction between their critical thinking. Anton Peck talks about designers having a “graphics mindset”. 4 If you’re not automatically conceiving concept and stylistic treatment for content when developing a design, then both you and your clients are at a dire disadvantage. Rutledge says that ‘pros need to think like pros’ and suggests in adopting a professional mindset. But that’s where the distinction between amateur and professional is blurred, anyone can adopt a professional mindset and so potentially anyone can ‘think like a pro’. Professionals though, have a responsibility to get the job done in ways that differ from that of amateurs and true ‘professional thinking’ is required for this to happen. The thin line between professionals and amateurs then carries on into a discussion of qualifications.

Graphic designers are not regulated by Government. In the 21st century there is no need to even waver a license under the nose of a potential employer. In today’s day and age the majority of graphic designers work on a freelance basis and jobs are landed in recognition and virtue of skill. Professionals of the graphic design industry are ‘qualified’ on a basis of learned, built and crafted skill. Amateurs of the graphic design industry are not ‘qualified’ they are self-taught. In recent times we’ve seen an upward spiral of graphic design courses in Universities and schools, but whether this produces professional ‘designers’ is another question. Really, these courses “churn out a production line of mac/pc/adobe operators rather than designers” and that’s exactly what there is a demand for, “people who can operate specialist machinery in a particular field, and do it well, to achieve the results desired by their employer and essentially the client.” 5

As Buchanan sees it, “the news for graphic designers is mostly troubling,” 6 because professionals with a ‘qualification’ are now competing in a dog-eat-dog world. Graphic design continues to remain more of a ‘field’ than a true discipline and as a result of digital media putting the tools of production into the hands of amateurs, professionals are in conquest to acquire a bit of recognition for their rudimentary hard work and time.

This path of discussion then lends itself to the battle between amateurs and professionals over employment. The practice of graphic design is at a fragile moment. It seems as though amateurs can do what the professionals do for less money and in less time. Professor Lawrence Lessig, an advocate of “free culture” says “digital tools are inspiring creativity in a way that we have not seen in a very long time”. 7 Amateurs are producing new forms of creativity within the digital content they generate and it seems they are already matching the high standards of learned professionals who have steadily worked to ground themselves in the graphic design industry. When it comes to employment though, professionals should naturally come out on top. In David Barringer’s article ‘Myths of the Self-Taught Designer’ notions of credentials are discussed as “proxy symbols of economic worth.” Those candidates lacking credentials suffer a handicap in the eyes of the potential employer. 8

Professionals (in respect to market value) hold over amateurs: an education, experience, a skill set and a portfolio, but in the dog-eat-dog world these are merely overlooked by companies wishing to cash in on the “uncooked, the untrained, and the unpaid.” 9 Meaning that employers in more cases then one will turn to the cheaper option of the two and pluck an amateur from the field to do a professionals job.

As we progress through this technologically-tuned century though, the flooding of the industry will start to shake out the truly talented people. Tim Kolb in his article ‘Entering the age of the expertise’ says that he fears “clients and employers will think of [our] skills as more of a commodity.” 10 However as the graphic design field becomes less mysterious, the tides will change and it will finally become clear that the equipment is in fact the commodity.

So even though we are facing the cult rise of the amateur in the 21^st century, the challenges that professionals are in blight with are not such a huge concern - as the nuances in skill and accreditation will rule out in the end. We will not see an elimination of professional creators, but we will see it complemented by a much wider range of amateur culture in the original sense of the word amateur – “in that people do it purely for the love of creating." 11

References

1 - Casey, Cheryl A. 2007, ‘The Cult of the Amateur’, viewed October 7, 2009, <http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/review/cult-of-the-amateur>

2 – The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English 2009, ‘Amateur’, viewed October 7, 2009, <http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-amateur.html>

3 – Rutledge, Andy, ‘Professional Thinking’, Design + View, July 24, 2007, Retrieved October 12, 2009, from <http://www.andyrutledge.com/pro-thinking.php>

4 – Peck, Anton, ‘The Missing Link of Web Design’, Anton Peck Journal, July 21, 2007, Retrieved October 8, 2009 from <http://antonpeck.com/journal/article/the_missing_link_of_web_design/>

5 – Miller, Vikki, ‘The end of Graphic Design as we know it’, This is it Blog, March 26, 2009, viewed October 18, 2009, <http://www.vikkimiller.com/blog/2009/03/graphic-design-final-frontier.html>

6 – Poynor, Rick 2008, ‘It’s the end of graphic design as we know it’ – Opinion in Vol. 69 of Eye Magazine, viewed October 17, 2009 <http://www.eyemagazine.com/opinion.php?id=160&oid=453>

7 – ‘Amateur culture set to explode’, BBC News, July 18, 2005, Retrieved October 22, 2009, from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4685471.stm>

8 – Barringer, David ‘Myths of the Self-Taught Designer: The Second Conversation between Ego and the Devil’, AIGA, June 9, 2005, Retrieved October 17, 2009 from <http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/myths-of-the-self-taught-designer-the-second-conversation-betwee>

9 – ‘For Love or Money’, Mother Jones January/February 2007 Issue, Retrieved October 17, 2009 from <http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/01/love-or-money>

10 – Kolb, Tim 2009, ‘Entering the age of expertise’, viewed October 18 2009, <http://library.creativecow.net/articles/kolb_tim/age_of_expertise.php>

11 – ‘Amateur culture set to explode’, BBC News, July 18, 2005, Retrieved October 22, 2009, from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4685471.stm>

For art-sake

I love art, short and sweet, brief and pleasant, guess I have grown up with some artistic roots. I found some photos of some stuff I did last year so here you go, look without daggers..

This stuff was all centered around the lotus flower if you didn't already come to grips with a theme here...

*** Anyway I did something extra and played around with some photo editing free apps that I found after Jason's lecture on internet software. One was called Splashup and another Picnik, but I couldn't find anything remotely as good as photoshop, just these small applications that do basic edits. Im not going to say they're rubbish, they're pretty good for little touch ups on photos etc but once you have used photoshop you understand that it doesn't have any 'free' competitors that can do the things it does. So I ended up back on photoshop, playing around in tribute to the title of my blog - Dark Side of the Moon - and developed a new header image. So for your viewing pleasure, scroll to the top of my blog and there you have my latest work of art, a digital manipulation if you like, that surely compliments my blog on the whole.

The transformation was from this:

To this:

Hopefully that will shine a little light on my blog...

Demon-ocracy

Week 8 Lecture: 

All about democracy and the political possibilities on the internet in relation to how it gives us free speech. Stephen Stockwell seems to really know his stuff, he can talk in so much depth about something so cyber and so political! Cyberpolitics! So here is what I gathered from the lecture...

Cyberpolitics: Politics of the internet that exists predominantly on the internet. It embraces all forms of social software like journalism, blogging and organisation building.

E-democracy: Internets intervention and contribution to real world politics that exists predominantly off the internet e.g. governments using internet to raise awareness and debate issues.

'Golden thread': Ability of people to communicate freely and the quality of participation of free speech regarding democracy.

Public sphere: domain of social life in which 'public opinion' forms.

Stephen talked about the question of free speech being crucial to democracy and that the biggest danger to this is censorship. With the mass media increasing in its power over society, democratic participation in representative democracy is wearing thin. Theorists are reacting and there is a growing potential to remodel what Habermas calls 'the public sphere'.

I caught the tail meaning of the term "Cyber Punk" somewhere in Stephens talk. This links in with the democracy of internet politics as the genre of cyberpunk studies the political possibilities inherent in cyberspace. Its like a 'matrix' - where the themes of cyberpunk are taken up and mused upon. 

*** I also discovered that we are to go and feed ourselves the 'Allegory of Plato's Cave' to read up before our exam? Sure?

"In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire.  Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see."

Here is an illustration of Plato's Cave:

Theory and practice of politics

*** I checked out Stephen Stockwell's We're all hackers now: Doing global democracy from the suggested reading on L@G. I had a read, but couldn't seem to waver my way through the whole stock of Stockwell so I just mused over the ideas that he was presenting in his wordy essay.

Stephen discuss' the idea of democracy as it adapts and prospers in the 21st century and talks about the "hacker" ethos, as hacking has become a creative intervention within mainstream media.

So hackers undoubtably have secured a bad name in modern times. 

hacker |ˈhakər|noun1 informal an enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user.• a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.2 a person or thing that hacks or cuts roughly.3 a person who plays amateur sports without talent or skill

Disregarding the third definition they all portray the 'hacker' in an unfavorable light. But in today's day and age we are all hackers. We all hack our way around bugs, through backdoors, using programs to sly the internets filters. Stephen in his essay says that -

"hacking can signify the free-wheeling intellectual exploration of the highest and deepest potential of computer systems. Hacking can describe the determination to make access to computers as free and open as possible. There is an attitude among hackers that 'beauty can be found in computers... (and) the fine aesthetic in a perfect program can liberate the mind and spirit'."

He then goes on the deflower the hacker values as - passionate and free work; the belief that individual imaginations can create great things together; and a commitment to existing ethical ideals, such as privacy and equality.

I was so consumed by this whole hacker ethos and how it opens up to become a tool in creating democracy within the realities of the information economy. Hackers sustain political structures and play their own part to repurpose the 'media machine' and explain the forms of equality in light of democratic values.

Stephen's essay was and is a very "powerful, challenging and scholarly piece!"

http://createworld2008.edublogs.org/2008/12/24/hacking-for-global-democracy/

http://ajax.acue.adelaide.edu.au/%7eallan/createworld/Stockwell_2008_Hacking.pdf

(All websites viewed on 20th September 2009)

Censorship - not clean just dirty

What do you think of the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")?

According to nocleanfeed.com the Government is committed to clean-feed the internet in Australian homes, schools and on public computers. Heres what we know so far of this plan to censor the internet:

Filtering will be mandatory in all homes and schools across the country.

The clean feed will censor material that is "harmful and inappropriate" for children.

The filter will require a massive expansion of the ACMA's blacklist of prohibited content.

The Government wants to use dynamic filters of questionable accuracy that slow the internet down by an average of 30%.

The filtering will target legal as well as illegal material.

$44m has been budgeted for the implementation of this scheme so far.

The clean-feed for children will be opt-out, but a second filter will be mandatory for all Internet users.

A live pilot deployment is going ahead in the near future.

This plan is bullocks! First of all there are technical issues, in that the internet does not work in such a way that would let a filter even come into effect. The internet is huge, there is so much content and I don't see how the Government could even come to terms with overpowering this vast cyber landscape with a filter. Second of all there are free-speech issues. If the Government controls what we can and cannot see then I believe this is taking away our rights of freedom. It steals Australians of an ability to make decisions about what content they can view.

Thirdly, what is this going to cost us? To attempt this filter, the Government will be throwing tens of millions of dollars into a worthless cause. The so called clean feed to protect our children is using money that could be better spent elsewhere!

Support for this overly broad Government plan though is virtually non-existent, even from child-protection organisations. In an Australian Broadband Survey results show that 51.5% of Australian net users are strongly against the plan, while only 2.9% strongly support it. 

So In my opinion, the Government should focus their time and money on more important issues in our nation. What they are trying to attempt will no doubt fail miserably and if they recognise the huge opposition to the 'Clean feed' then maybe they will find a better use of their coin...

http://whirlpool.net.au/survey/2007/

http://nocleanfeed.com/learn.html

What place does censorship have in a democracy?

Censorship does not have a place in democracy. Plain and simple, it does not fit the age of freedom of information in which we live.
"Even if freedom of expression is merely a tool for uncovering and communicating truths, censorship, even well-meaning and well-regulated censorship, cannot in its nature serve to promote equality and justice."

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/censorship+impossible+democracy/1696194/story.html

(All website viewed September 17, 18, 19, 2009)

Political eyewash

Week 8 tutorial:

Sticking to my political beliefs what opportunities can I find for political participation via the internet? I would really like to drop this task in gutter water and sell it as lubricant! I hate politics! But I shall manage..

Sign an e-petition

I thought that signing a petition relating to parliamentary action would be somewhat more relevant for this task then just signing something completely far fetched and meaningless. If Im going to sign an e-petition I should do it right huh, plea for something worthy!

So, I added my name to a 'GetUp! - Action for Australia' petition, telling the Government to invest more money in renewable energy rather than giving handouts to the polluters.

They say "It's time for less bickering and more common sense - investment in renewable energy means we can stimulate the economy and create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs. Without a groundswell of support from the public the Government will continue to ignore the facts and continue to delay any real action to reduce Australia's carbon emissions."

Yeah I think its right to demand common sense, but then they wanted me to make a donation. Geez, they try and fleece you for some coin any way they can!

http://www.getup.org.au/

Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site

I landed here on 'Articulate' which is ABC News Online's daily take on arts news and events in Australia and throughout the world. I then responded to a blog 'Woodstock on Broadway' about turning the three-day peace, love, mud and music festival into a musical. Sophia Gardner asks at the end of her blog post 'Do you think a mainstream Woodstock musical could stay true to the festival's spirit?' and rightly so I followed suit to opinion against the dim idea..

I agree, there was only one Woodstock. The recent Ang Lee film 'Taking Woodstock' focuses on how the festival came together, so it takes a sensible spin and creates an essence of what it was all about. Turning Woodstock into a musical will surely kill it. If Lang says 'the production will look beyond the music' then he is at variance with the spirit of the festival. Wasn't the spirit of the festival the music? People came to Woodstock to experience the music? The music brought peace and the music was anti-Vietnam... 'Taking Woodstock' has already delved into "the human condition, stories affecting people's lives and something of what we experienced on that weekend." It has already focused it's lense on these ideas, so what more is Lang offering?

Posted by: Skye | Oct 05, 2009 at 10:43 PM

http://blogs.abc.net.au/articulate/2009/09/woodstock-on-broadway.html

What is Barack Obama up to today? 

Today, being September 17, I googled Barack Obama to see how his day was unravelling. I found a whole bunch of news stories and picked something at random. So heres what Obama's up to today...

"Barack Obama has abandoned the controversial Pentagon plan to build a missile defence system in Europe that had long soured relations with Russia. Obama announced the reversal officially at a news conference today. 'This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems to offer greater defences to the threat of attack than the 2007 European missile defence programme,' he said."

Read the whole story here - Obama abandons missile defence shield in Europe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/17/missile-defence-shield-barack-obama

*** I went ahead and found some Obama fans and included some photos that they have produced... Okay, maybe they're not fans but I got a laugh out of these...

Baby got back, baby get back!

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en-us&um=1&q=barack+obama+funny+photos&sa=N&start=320&ndsp=20

Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.

Local:

"Local Government is part of the third or lowest level of government in Australia, often seen as being the most accessible to the people. The Local Government Directory is compiled by the Department of Local Government from information provided by councils and other local government organisations. The Directory contains information about Local Councils, County Councils, Regional Organisations of Councils and other organisations working within the Local Government sector."

So I live in the Tweed Shire, just south of the QLD/NSW border. My local representative is from the Tweed Shire Council and his name is Warren Polglase. 

http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlghome/dlg_LocalGovDirectory.asp?index=1&CN=ALL#202

State: 

"State Government represents the second level of Australian Government. State Government members represent specific areas of the state."

My state representative is Mr Geoff Provest. 

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_is_the_state_representative_for_NSW

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/members.nsf/c8a9b0fc61cd9910ca256e7c000acca0/e70e06cc31bf3b5fca2572ae001b66cf!OpenDocument

Federal:

"The Australian Federal Government is the highest tier of Government in Australia and consist of two houses of parliament - the House of Representatives and the Senate.Members of the House of Representatives represent specific areas of their state (electorates). Decisions made by the House of Represenatatives are then reviewed in the Senate. Senators represent their state as a whole, rather than a specific electorate region - the List of Government Representatives of the Gold Coast Region is a handy reference of members of State and Federal Parliaments representing areas of Gold Coast City."

My local federal MP is Justine Elliot. She's the member for Richmond or Tweed NSW. I met her a couple of weeks ago actually and she seems to be high profiling herself around the Tweed whenever she can. Man she just appears out of nowhere! 

http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/t_standard.aspx?pid=4351

Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament. 

Let your local member know what you think about their last speech.

The last time that Justine Elliot spoke in Parliament was Monday, 7 September 2009 according to the hansard. 

She spoke in response to MP Mike Symons questions: What action is the government taking to improve the quality of care for older Australians through investment in the aged-care workforce? How is it working to address workforce shortages?

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=;db=;group=;holdingType=;id=;orderBy=;page=;query=Dataset%3Ahansardr,hansards%20((SpeakerId%3ADZW)%20|%20(QuestionerId_Phrase%3ADZW)%20|%20(ResponderId_Phrase%3ADZW)%20|%20(InterjectId_Phrase%3ADZW)%20|%20(PresenterId_Phrase%3ADZW));querytype=;rec=0;resCount=Default

I sent an email to Justine Elliot not so much accrediting her last speech but her work in general. I can't say I'm all that interested in her action to improve 'aged care' and so letting her know what I thought of her last speech would probably sound a bit far fetched coming from a teenager of a non-political-absorbing ethos. I just commented on what she does around the Tweed shire instead. Much sweater.

(All websites viewed on 17th September, then again on 5th October)