https://ellegriffin.substack.com/p/fund-artists-like-startups
"Margaret Atwood has a new novel coming out in 2114. You read that correctly:
the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale will publish her last book
Scribbler Moon long after we are dead. We won’t get to read it, our kids won’t
get to read it, but maybe their kids will—and that’s kind of the point.
The book will be published as part of Katie Paterson’s Future Library—a
collection of 100 books written between 2014 to 2114 and held in a trust until
the library’s opening date, one century after a forest was planted in Norway
that will be harvested and milled into the pages of those books.
Paterson’s library is a meditation on time—illustrating the slow process that
is growing a tree until it is mature enough to be harvested and milled into the
pages of the books we read. The process can’t be rushed, trees grow slowly.
Books take a long time to write, too. For something really beautiful to happen,
it takes time. And it’s worth the wait.
To place the long arc of time into perspective, The Long Now Foundation aims to
build a 10,000-year mechanical clock, perched upon a mountain in Nevada. The
designer Danny Hillis says the century hand will advance every 100 years and a
cuckoo will emerge at the millennium. In other words, we might be able to see
the clock move once in our lifetimes—and most likely we will never see the
cuckoo.
These artists are building masterpieces that will outlive them—that will be
enjoyed by the generations to come. But creating art that takes time—in some
cases centuries—requires money. And funding something with such a long-term
return just isn’t as desirable to investors as a startup that might go public
in five years."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
