Warren Ellis
By Hand & Brain
[On this time]
There are always periods like this. Any commonly defined era has felt itself to be approaching a point of breakthrough or perfection. There was a time when people thought science was a concluded form, and that we’d answered all the questions of import to our satisfaction.
Sometimes I wonder if (Western) culture only works if we have this weird cultural amnesia that allows us to believe that we’re doing everything right this time. We forget all the other periods where people thought the same thing.
[Corporations as cultural citizens]
I come from a field where the standard “work for hire” contracts state that the publisher — the corporation — is the legal author of the work. That I receive the printed credit for the work I do when executing WFH is essentially a courtesy, since, in order to get paid, I have to accept that and waive my moral rights. And we’re all quick to identify “Disney” as the author of Disney films, even though we now fetishise the directors of Pixar movies the way French film aesthetes fetishised contract directors like Hitchcock and Ray.
I have this feeling that to call a corporation a cultural citizen imputes a humanity to them that isn’t there physically and shouldn’t be there legally. And I feel like it devalues the human contributions within those actors. Apple didn’t get a knighthood for services to product design. Maybe a cultural actor enables or causes circumstances that lead to production. But it is answerable to the goals and punishments of finance, and will also Deliver Quality First by disabling those circumstances and defunding its cultural invention despite the desires and drives of its human staff. Perhaps that comes under the heading of “bad cultural citizen.” But so do WFH contracts, which lead to the corporation considered as the legal author of the work and people viewing them as citizens or producers.
[Making]
I own a thing called a Tactical Defense Pen, given to me by a designer who I do not believe placed any redemptive value on the object or its making. It’s designed to be inserted through the human eye and into the human brain, and still work as a pen afterwards. It’s actually one of the best pens I own, for ergonomics and ink flow. It’s a beautiful object in its own right, and carefully and skilfully made. But what I’m telling you about is, let’s be blunt, a guy who saw a need for a good pen that can also kill people easily. I’m not sure how that fits with your question.
By Warren Ellis.
This is part of By Hand & Brain, an essay by 7 people.
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