Because after watching this video, I had a stress dream about participating in a debate on whether artists bear responsibility to do/be/portray anything (like “speak truth to power” vs “accurately represent something physical or societal without including one’s own flawed perspective” etc whatever). My role in the dream was to be horrified at the suggestion that art in and of itself must then have some kind of universal purpose that it must fulfill in order to be considered art. I just remember hollering “THIS IS NOT A PIPE!!!! THIS IS NOT A PIIIIIPE!!!!” to a bunch of unimpressed dudes– which in the cold light of day strikes me as not a particularly effective argument, but at the time seemed poignant.

At least that’s what I think the dream was about, I doubt my sleeping brain was actually able to cook up any rational arguments anyway. All my brain was doing was firing on synapses and neurons that I had activated that day while thinking about art.

(One more thing I’d like to add is that normally, if I was linking a short video, I’d include here a description of the visual contents. Please note that Biz is a beautiful and young white woman with long red hair– and occasionally her brown tabby cat enters the frame to lay across her lap. The video I embedded here is 3 and a half hours long, and I can’t provide that description. However, the video is able to stand on its own in an audio format, save for when she is discussing specific works of art or putting a quote or a source for a quote on the screen. Otherwise, I found this video and the video’s creator to be a really interesting piece to consume and then churn into a nightmare by accident. I highly recommend giving it a watch or listen, but don’t recommend having a stress dream about it if you can avoid it.)