Kathy Acker Was Against Creativity

Remember that Kathy Acker was big on task work, too: “I really didn’t want any creativity,” she said, “so I set up this task, this nutty task basically, and I’d do it!”

Graphic design, the discipline of aesthetic production, is facing a crisis as it reconciles with catastrophic effects of network technology on its profitability. Even prolific designers who produce work with a characteristic original aesthetic are quickly copied. As their work is pillaged and reproduced downstream (leftstream), it becomes increasin... See more

“The writing of the pose is the literary product of the MFA system and of Instagram in equal measure—it brings writing into the ordinary grueling business of the curation of the self which dominates advanced capitalist culture today.”

All to say that, to my mind, criticism is my own work, just as “my own work”—my original creative work—is also the work of the writers I’ve read and loved (and, in another way, read and resisted), of what has accrued in me.

Whether our society chooses to describe something as creative or destructive is at best in the eye of the beholder and at worst entirely deceptive. Communities, livelihoods, and ecosystems are routinely destroyed in the pursuit of so-called creativity. Creativity at Facebook arguably destroyed local news. Creativity in fast-fashion is catastrophic ... See more

Similarly, I wonder whether the creator economy, as it matures, will resemble less of its original promise (a way for people to do the things they love), in favor of a “creator industrial complex.” Part of the problem is that creativity comes in fits and starts, and can’t always be tamed into a predictable routine. If you’re obligated to create som... See more