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Playing and Reality

Playing and Reality

The Skowhegan Talk

Catherine Liu's avatar
Catherine Liu
Jul 31, 2025
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Playing and Reality
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Playing and Reality

Why is it so hard for people to find their way to a shared reality these days? I will try to answer this question obliquely, with the question in the back of my mind about the hyperdevelopment of technocratic and liberal ideologies of domination (AI, trauma culture, etc) with another question: why is the artist and her process important to an account of what has broken down in the development of the political subject and the artist. The maturity of the artist is dependent on her ability to engage with purposeless purposiveness and the cultivation of creativity and “total living” that is dependent on environmental provision. Mass human thriving through creative engagement with a shared world is not something that capitalism wants to see realized. Art and creativity are entirely reified as objects and processes. The artist caught between lumpen bohemianism and entrepreneurial hustle provides us with a peculiar example of thwarted individualism. We were not ready to become political subjects: that is why we embraced the professionally managed identity categories as our own.

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