Not going back to teaching

Two weeks ago I posted a lengthy status update on Instagram about my decision to leave the university and become a full time content creator. Most of this text came from a yet to be released podcast with community member and DNR contributor Devin O'Shea. I've published a slightly longer version in the most recent issue of Spike #69: Storytelling. You can find the full PDF attached here.

The response has been very interesting. I think it tells us some important things about the state of the art world as well as its publications and institutions. Spike is my favorite art magazine-- honestly, its the only one that I read because all the others are a waste of time and literally written for a cabal of pedo-vampiric elites slurping adrenochrome in the VIP lounge at Frieze London. That said, I think this will be the last piece I publish anywhere outside of my own platform for a while. 

Looking at the analytics of several recent museum projects, it becomes clear that the institutions are driving less traffic than individual content creators. This is the inflection point: rather than facilitating art through space, funding, and expertise-- the institutions have become parasitic upon the artists they purport to serve. While having limitless resources, they pay less, bring less visibility and censor the risky parts. All of this would be acceptable if there was some other promise further down the road but I don't believe in those myths anymore. Here's why:

After posting that short text to Instagram, I was inundated with messages from magazines, institutions, and orgs that I had previously worked with. All of which invited me to do unpaid speaking gigs on their platform. So, even when you have built an independent, monetized and functioning alternative, the art world still believes it is entitled to your free labor. Is there no escape from this black hole? How are we supposed to continue paying DoNotResearch.net contributors while doing unpaid work for the art world?

We've dedicated a lot of time on the stream to discussing the importance of institutions and their valuable role in society. But at this point I feel that there is little hope for those institutions to course correct, or rid themselves of elite capture, without a competitive and viable alternative-- only once enough people have left, will they finally be forced to restructure.