The best bit of South By Southwest has been Bruce Sterling's talk in which he spent most of it shouting angrily at us for not living up to our responsibilities as an audience.
Instead of keeping our side of the bargain and paying proper attention, both when we should be present and participating in the room and throughout the long term relationship between us and the artists we claim to like, we are spending all our time first twittering when we should be listening, then pirating books and records, not bothering to work hard enough (in fact not needing to bother at all) to search out and own obscure records on vinyl or second hand paperbacks.
He went further than decrying piracy and pretty much said everything digital was shit and was killing art.
And he proved his contempt by eating crisps and drinking beer all the way through the talk and giving away copies of his book to anyone under twenty five, helping them to understand what he was doing by explaining that books were "lots of words in a row".
In return for us not being good audiences any more, artists are going to back out of their side of the deal.
No more H.P. Lovecraft spending a lifetime dedicated to the service of the horror writing community of America, helping everyone who turned to him, with their personal as well as professional problems, then dying in poverty at 42.
And much worse for the audience in the room, no more open invites to Bruce Sterling's house for a party during SXSW.
We didn't deserve to be asked.
Anyone got an audio or video recording of Sterling's talk yet?
Posted by: ARF | April 11, 2009 at 04:28