Manifesto

“The internet revolution is bullshit. We wasted it.” –The ENEMIES LIST Manifesto

“All that is lacking is the will, the belief that what can happen in something that does not have authorisation/legitimation can be as important — more important — than what comes through official channels.” – Mark Fisher, “Why K?”

Part 1. Background:

The best model for independent creatives these days is a strong personal brand on social media. The artist builds a dedicated audience which then purchases subscriptions or products. There is nothing inherently wrong with this model, but it tends to prioritize the artist’s identity over the work itself. As a writer and artist, I don’t have a consistent brand or a stable identity.  I’ve tried a bunch of times to be consistent, I managed 16 weeks of a podcast, but I have a ton of ups and downs. I have at least four previous attempts at blogs, plus a defunct newsletter. Though I  used feel shame these “failed projects” but now I see them as an incredible archive. I might pick up any one of them again.

Acethetics is my latest attempt to express myself through the medium of blogging: Ace is a nickname I can tell you stories about, and Aesthetics are the focus of this project. Political and cultural questions will be subservient to that end. I typically work through writing and photography, though I’ve been known to dabble in other media.

Part 2. Maxims, Principles, & Warnings

Acethetics should be seen as the product of the persona “Ace” rather than the person behind the keyboard whom you may or may not know. This interpretive frame is both to center the work itself, and to act as a disclaimer that everything here should be classified as fiction. This does not preclude personal writing because hoo boy, I am gonna overshare.

Acethetics has no guaranteed schedule. I hope to give people as much content as possible, but I’ve got things in my brain and situation which make it tough to guarantee a new project will be regular or continue forever. I promise to do my best to keep the ball rolling, and to try and build a buffer of scheduled posts before I enter bush camps to plant trees.

Acethetics thinks that blogging fucking rules, and you should do it too. It make sense to be concerned about what you put out on the internet, but the more unfiltered voices we have doing independent writing the better. I will link writers I think are good, and if you want to start a blog, I’ll do whatever’s in my capacity to help you do so.

Acethetics is a work in progress. I haven’t decided if it’s an artist page, or a blog, or a platform. I hope that’s exciting to you, because it means we get to find out what this is as we go along.

Acethetics is not a commercial project. The site will always be ad free. I will have a tip jar at the bottom of every post, so pay what you can if want to.

Acethetics is utopian. It believes a better world is possible, and wants to do whatever it can to contribute to that, in collaboration with its audience.