Before AI, and before algortithms, the audience had one responsiblility in regard to the creative process. Discovery. It was the job of the audience to find the movies, books, music, art that deserved attention and purchase it. It was also the audiences job to share their discoveries with others. Everyone was a tastemaker. Everyone had a hand in the culture of their particular interest. There is still no better feeling than hearing your friend play the album you put them onto last month.

But we don’t do that anymore. Not really.

My brother Chris Cunningham and I are typical siblings in that we don't see each other nearly enough. We rarely talk at all. It's not that we don't love and care for each other it's more a matter of how life be life-ing. Chris has an active life and multiple jobs and I'm a borderline shut-in with a kid, two dogs, and three projects I'm trying to get out of my head everyday.

But there is always a tie thant binds.

I’m a firm believer that we don’t “own” our ideas. Think of the number of times you had an idea for a piece of art, or an invention, or some other thing that didn’t exist before you thought of it. That thing you forgot to write down, or draw, or shoot, only to have that very thing cross your path, created by someone else days, months, years later. That thought you let languish found a home somewhere else. That seed found soil and bloomed into the thing you should have made.

I walk my dog every morning. Most mornings we walk pretty much the same route. So I decided to give myself a challenge. Find something unique along the path I tread daily and take a photo. Somedays there will be something genuinely new. Others I will have to find a way to shoot the mundane with a new perspective.

In 2023 there is virtually no reason to shoot film. It’s expensive. It’s inconvenient. The process is slowwwww (especially if you don’t develop yourself). People who shoot film love the word artisanal and beanies.

So why do I want to master it?

I walk my dog every morning. Most mornings we walk pretty much the same route. So I decided to give myself a challenge. Find something unique along the path I tread daily and take a photo. Somedays there will be something genuinely new. Others I will have to find a way to shoot the mundane with a new perspective.

The first time I deleted my drafts, it felt like a gut punch. I loved those drafts. I loved the words within those drafts. They were lyrical. They touched my soul. They were my darlings. But, in writing, your darlings are really just dead weight. We drag them from project to project. We sift through them as a means of self-congratulation and self-flagellation. “I love what I wrote” collides with “I hate that I didn’t write anything.”

I am the worst combination of two things. I’m a procrastinator and a maximalist. I can have a hard time getting going on tasks and projects. Worse still, I tend to accumulate stuff along the path to productivity. I keep trying to build the perfect environment for productivity and creativity. Until a couple of weeks ago I had a third screen installed on my computer. One for writing, one for media, and one for social media and reading. It was pretty dope. It was also completely ineffective.

We are taught that this time in our heads is procrastination. Imagination is not work shown, so how do we quantify its value? Without that quantifying, how do we determine the value of your work? How do we determine your value as a person without knowing the value of that work?