Why art matters

prologue

We live through some strange, complicated times. Maybe I’m just too young. Maybe it’s just the first time I’m experiencing hardship and uncertainty in my life. After more than a decade of working professionally as an artist, I decided to combine two of my favourite pastimes. Art, and as of late, writing. I’m a big overthinker, so might as well write my (over)thoughts down in a more structured format and share my experiences and knowledge with people.

The Spotlight Archive will be a collection of essays (or blog posts, call them whatever you want) with topics ranging all the way from high-level art concepts to tech blogs. If you’re still reading this, you’ve been warned that this is going to be a bit chaotic.

who are you and why should I listen to you?

Hey there, I’m Angelo, a Senior Lighting Artist working in the videogames industry. In the past 13 years I’ve taken on many different adjacent roles such as 3D Artist, Environment Artist and Art Director for all sorts of games and real-time interactive experiences. I’ve even worked on a fair amount of architectural visualisation projects. With that said, please note that everything I say here is my own opinion and doesn’t reflect the opinions on any current/past employer(s). Now then, enough of this chit-chat. Let’s talk art.

so, why does it even matter?

We’ve all heard the stories. Artificial Intelligence is the perfect solution to finally get rid of all these pesky, pretentious, expensive artists. Why do I need a graphic designer to make me something that I can generate with ChatGPT in 2 minutes? Why do we need hundreds of highly-paid artists for a modern AAA game, only for it to be a commercial flop? Does it matter if a minor background piece of art was generated with AI? What if AI will allow devs to ship games faster and cheaper? The list goes on and on. I’m not here to argue about either of these topics, at least not today. I’m here to talk about why art created by human artists matter. More than ever in fact.

Let us do a thought experiment for a moment. Let’s pretend that all human artists along with their creations disappeared tomorrow. You’ve got no videogames to play, no movies to watch, no books to read, no music to listen to. And yes, that includes all your favourite Youtubers or content creators, those are gone too. What would you do with all your free time? Work more perhaps? Life sounds a bit bland without any of these things, don’t you think? You could replace all of the above with soulless AI-generated content. So now what? You end up watching yet another average series that describes the same average human situations or play yet any casual videogame designed to maximise your dopamine intake and shareholder ad revenue. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like the mainstream media industry is heading that way, and it’s a future that I don’t like. I think it’s up to all of us, artists first and foremost, but also the everyday film lover, gamer, raver or book reader to keep our standards high and demand better.

Art is weird. The job of an artist is even weirder. It is one that is typically not regarded as useful compared to jobs like a doctor or a lawyer. Also, due to modern market dynamics, there’s a lot more artists than there are jobs, meaning that most of them are generally not very well-paying. I might be a bit biased here, but I’d guess there’s a lot of people out there who would love to be artists themselves, but have to settle for a different, more stable career because.. well, society telling them to be responsible adults and get a “real” job. Speaking from personal experience, I remember when I first found out that 3D art is a thing and told my parents, they didn’t believe me. While they supported my dreams (for which I’m extremely grateful), it was only when I got my third stable job making more than the median salary in Greece that they realized that I can actually make a living out of this “hobby” of mine. Unless someone comes from a family of other artists, that story is almost universal.

why are you telling me this?

I’m definitely not telling you to drop everything and follow your teenage dream of becoming an artist. I’m a realist myself, and even in my (relatively to other artists’) short career had countless rejections, close calls and failures. If it was tough out there to be an artist ten years ago, it’s even tougher now. I’ve been incredibly lucky to be where I am today, but at the same time, this career choice has taken a heavy toll on me, and everyone who goes down that path. With that said though, it is a career path that will bring you joy, allow you to be a perpetual learner and bring you closer to some amazing humans. Artists are cool peeps! My journey started with the naïve idea that I wanted to be a 3D Animator and work at Pixar. Soon after I discovered 3D games and I wanted to be an artist at Insomniac Games. Right now, I’m not quite sure where my north star lies. As with many fellow game developers, the instability, layoffs, project cancellations and economic turmoil have all strongly shook the foundations of my passion for this industry. We don’t know if the ground we’re standing on is solid. But that’s a longer discussion for another time.

some good news

It’s not all gloom and doom though. We still get some amazing indie games, discover new up and coming artists and authors still write beautiful books. Some of my life’s most memorable moments, where I felt pure joy, cried my heart out or felt goosebumps throughout my whole body, happened when I was reading books, enjoying music at a festival or watching a movie. These were defining moments that shaped who I am today, moments that made me feel grateful to be present, to experience what is to be human.

closing thoughts

I guess what I’m trying to say is, while art is not essential for your survival, it is essential for your existence. Our society is based around collective stories, ideas and myths. Art is the strongest way to express and share those things with each other. You don’t have to be a grand, world-renowned artist to do that. The moment you create something from nothing, you become one of us. And this moment in time, is still the best time to get started. You’ve got all the resources of the collective art world at your disposal. If it seems daunting, take it one step at a time, one brush stroke at a time, one vertex at a time.

In the past years, art have been relentlessly attacked on all fronts. We’re still here, but we’re bleeding. My hope is that we don’t just collectively hand over this immense source of good to machines. Because a human artist will, a machine will not. As long as we care, art will be there to heal us.