Recently we spent time with beautiful friends in Connecticut where we visited Grace Farms, an incredible sanctuary focusing on the principles of faith, nature, art, community + justice. The River Building, designed by Sanaa Architects weaves its way through the landscape like with a respect that bows ever so eloquently to the beauty of its surroundings. Experiencing such beauty amid the merging of two strongly existing worlds, that which is man made + all that is so much bigger than anything we could ever create, I couldn't help but come back to the idea of truthful creativity + what it means to me amid a world controlled so deeply by algorithmic commands.
Slower story telling where untreated vulnerability, messy kinds of beautiful along with the raw + exposing emotion of the creator is something I just love as a human; it’s something I can’t help but forever feel drawn back to as though a magnetic force is pulling me home. Expression where an over arching tale is portrayed through reflective narratives in the written word along with slower style aesthetics is something I feel protective of, especially now in this algorithmic world.
As someone who innately loves to create beautiful things + can’t help but understand the world around me + life in general through the detailed + potential beauty in the tiniest of places, the idea of algorithmic pressure is something I just can’t vibe to. I’ve been considering it more + more of late. The truth is, the way the algorithm works simply doesn’t allow for or encourage truthful storytelling but rather a specifically altered rendering of any such narrative so as to ensure the reward of further growth or recognition externally. The growth born of pleasing the algorithm is ultimately determined by this crazy (like it’s bizarrely controlling when you think about it) authoritative ‘thing’ that’s now so much bigger than us all; something I see as an aggressive discouragement of the beauty of creative processes. And while I really do get it, as certain parts of my own work very much plays into it’s now firm place in the world + actually relies on it’s power, it’s just such a sad reality that threads itself through absolutely everything now. Yet with a deep love of creativity, I seek to stop myself bowing to it’s being, for as I’ve found myself in so much self-doubt these past few years within my own creativity, always questioning myself + double checking as to whether I should share, what I should share, how, what time.. should I even share.., the self-doubt can be utterly crippling. I no longer want to feel paralysed by that incapacitating reality that the algorithm has been in some way subconsciously been controlling my creative flow. And so I stop myself. For real this time. Because the reality is, it’s here, existing with a very firm presence in our everyday world now. And it will continue to reward those who satisfy its demands; demands that, once fed + nurtured, grants itself even more control over us as individuals. Yet, in true me style, I just can’t help but question, what the actual F was I thinking letting that fear stop me from creatively expressing myself, unencumbered + with the self authority I hold in so many other parts of my being.
Creating to me is about the process not how fast it will be consumed or how many times it will be viewed. We are all creative beings, each of us communicating in various ways every single day; it’s the simple idea of bringing something into existence that wasn’t previously there. That is creation. And while I’m in no way saying that dancing on TikTok isn’t creative, as it very much is, it’s the idea that what we create + how we share it is now so strongly, however subconsciously, dictated by the algorithm + how it’s established a new ‘normal’ of the human attention span in recent years. Continuing to create to it’s demands means we are fundamentally + forever changing our natural ways of expression. What becomes of that? Something that’s yours though, shared because it brought YOU joy or simply shared because it’s the only way you know how to express yourself - the only way to connect to the world is perhaps what we could come back to again? What if we just created + shared what made us happy again? What if we respected the time it requires to read something in long format? (Like heyyyy if you’ve taken the time to click through to this page + made it through to the end of this article). What if we held ourselves accountable to retain the attention required to soak up something beautiful, whatever it’s format, even if it is past the 8.25 seconds that the algorithm has now deemed our capacity for conscious observation.
I love seeing people create beauty - whatever the form. But the truth is I’m not so much a TikTok chick. I just can’t vibe to the continued fast paced scrolling it encourages, regardless of the reverberating sound of people repeating “it’s where the growth is”. But is it where the actual attention or long term work is that translates into a sale or a lifelong customer, reader, community member? I love what now seems like an old world approach to creation : beautiful imagery + shorter video, brought to life + supported by words that mean something to me. Maybe I’m showing my age but I can’t buy into the fast paced world of the more, more, more; the pressure that threads itself through every aspect of how we live now - be that for brand, content creators or just simply humans For a long time it’s felt so confusing, I’ve felt like I don’t fit into the world of content creators as they grow from strength to strength within a world I know can often feel like a massive pressure.
But imagine if we created not for the reception it may receive or in order to place it within the workings of the authority the algorithm now commands but for what lights us up from the inside out? Imagine the world we might leave behind? I’m continuously exploring this as an individual + I hope that in reading this, we might do so together.
Visit —— GRACE FARMS
