*bastard in a non derogatory way and in no relation to the old meaning of the word

New technologies have revolutionised our lives, undercutting established norms and upending industries. It’s in these periods of uncertainty that true innovators revel… this next generation of creative minds is keen to recreate the country in its own image: inspired, individual, artistic.
David Annand

What we need are radicals keen to re-imagine the creation and distribution of their art.

Many think the internet isn’t all that special, that the internet is effectively just Facebook, Twitter and a nice looking website. Take advantage of what is presented to you right now. There will be no shortage of those people who only do something because everybody else is already doing it, but there will always be a shortage of those coming from the outside – burrowing their way in for the explosion.

An obsessive interest in knowing how people will consume your art and how it will be discovered is what will set you apart; it’s the way in which we’ll see not only exciting art emerge, but exciting ways to broadcast that art to fans. We’ll trip and make a fool of it all sometimes, but it’s this curiosity that moves us.

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The hit-makers will always be focused on the big tech developments, but your job remains the same – to be concerned with everything that surrounds your art. There are no exact answers, this is art for a reason.

Cheap cameras, mixing desks and laptops are no substitute for cinematographers and sound engineers in a state-of-the art recording studio, but you shouldn’t be particularly bothered. Getting on with it now, getting down what needs to be said with what you’ve got is far more important than waiting for someone to pick you out of obscurity.

“Now, with pro-tools or a simple musical instrument you can make an album, you don’t even need a musical instrument, you can just remix music. Now, with a $300 video camera, you can make a movie – a movie that might play in theatres. What we see over and over and over again, is a different kind of person is able become an artist and so there is going to this huge surplus of stuff created that’s easy art, and it won’t work, because with that much to choose from we’ll just walk away. But difficult art, art that really challenges the status quo, art that changes us: that’s gonna be scarce, and it’s not going to be scarce because of talent, it’s going to be scarce because of guts. There is only a tiny number of people that have the guts to do work that hasn’t been done before…We don’t seek out the banal or the trivial, we seek out something that touches us that makes a change happen.”
Seth Godin

As soon as you recognise that there is no going back, no going back to over-priced CD’s and a non-digital world, the sooner you’ll want to pick up on the opportunities that exist right in front of you and start forging a new way of making money from your art.

The choices presented to us now are so infinitely great that we are soaked in overwhelm: both curse and blessing.

Bastards ‘get’ that art now becomes a free entity on the internet that travels and morphs, gets remixed, gets blogged about – this is a global community of inspired people who are passionate about art. Ideas that you come up with, however shocking or primitive, can be given an audience. I’d urge you not to quell your inner voice, because that inner voice is what sets you apart from everyone else, that’s what will spread, and you have the tools right now to get started; to build something.

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behyped is on Twitter.

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