Where, in the final days of the twentieth century, stands the iconoclastic, free-willed artist who reflects back the subconscious utterances and desires of the culture? With the inevitable rise of multinational conglomerates that own vast tracts of media outlets, from print to cyberspace, will the independent voice be stifled or find new and urgent focus under the market-driven harness?

The highly publicised reports of Rupert Murdoch's efforts to 'kill' an autobiography, which was scheduled for publication by the English branch of HarperCollins, are only the surface burblings and, by no means, the first or the last time we will hear of such affronts to free expression. Power hungry bureaucrats have always had one over the artist. Throughout history, when the choice of words did not agree with official standing, books were burned, statues smashed, men slaughtered.

It should come as no surprise, in our democratic age, that a rapacious media baron like Murdoch should attempt to curb free speech in order to placate a country he hopes to exploit for financial gain. Bill Gates's strategy to monopolise access to the worldwide web, in the name of free enterprise and the American way, are comparable.

Giving the issue a pop culture twist, things were no different in the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood when a handful of powerful Jewish émigrés created and ruled with an iron fist one of the most fertile eras of American film-making. By all outward appearances, Louis B. Mayer was a cuddly and lovable father figure to the many who gathered beneath the banner of his roaring lion, but, like Napoleon, he was also a dictator, with an unstoppable vision of romance that swept all before him. If Napoleon's vision was predicated on nation, then Mayer's was based on an idealised depiction of rosy, middle-class affluence, complete with toe-tapping tunes.

During the thirties and forties, by ruthlessly absorbing other studios, Mayer was able to bring together and focus the combined talents of Europe and America's finest cinematic technicians to bear out his version of what America and, therefore, the rest of the world should be like. It was left to studios, such as RKO and Warner Brothers, to pick up the slack and shoot films about the darker elements of society, often with the rebellious actors and technicians Mayer had jettisoned. Despite Mayer's institutional control and, I would argue, because of it, MGM studios has left an enduring cinematic legacy with universal resonance. Certain highly individualistic directors and actors were never better than when they slaved under his studio formula. Like the Alberto Moravia of the Italian Fascist period, artists of the future may also have to focus and sharpen their vision under the limitations imposed by the men in pony tails to produce works of marked originality.


Certainly, as testified by the majority of today's conceptual art and flabby literature, a free hand has not always benefited the arts.

But let's get back to all those free-willed artists hanging out in warehouse spaces and cyber-cafes. As the ones who dream up the words and images we absorb, where do they stand in all this? Can we continue to maintain poet Thomas Gray's romantic vision of the isolated bard who descends from the mountain to beat back the invading hordes, or does that fancy now belong to the trash heap of history?

It's a fifty-fifty argument, complicated by our notion of the artist as rebellious individualist, which only goes back as far as Byron, and found enhancement in 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism' by Oscar Wilde. In this famous essay, the great Irish individualist declared that, 'A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is (the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist)', which probably accounts for why so much politically-motivated art is doomed to mediocrity. However, going by the continuing fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the confiscation of Australian artist Juan Davila's paintings by NSW police in the 80s and the more recent cancellation of photographer Andres Serrano's exhibition by the National Gallery of Victoria yielding to pressure from the Catholic Church, it seems the artist is still a potent and destabilising force to those in power. But as seen recently in the case of the Greek-Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas, the dominant commercial machinery, by its very nature, is very adept at absorbing and nullifying potentially radical thought.
Tsiolkas burst on the scene with Loaded, a book that had the potential to disrupt the traditional ways we look at the migrant and homosexual experience in this country. With its explosive themes of alienation, contrary stance on matters of sexuality and virulent attacks on ethnicity, it was a bit of a rabid book -- one which I enjoyed immensely for its truth-saying. But within weeks, Tsiolkas became the darling of the very people he was criticising, the cool new dude to be reading, interviewing and quoting. Not surprisingly, his message was quickly swamped by the mechanism of celebrity and the concept-driven, marketing idea of the 'grunge writer'. Even Rushdie has not escaped being marketed as the man with a fatwa hanging over his head, perhaps for life. ('Read him now for tomorrow his head belongs to Islam.') No new book of his is complete without an interview conducted from the bunker lamenting his unenviable position. Ironically, it seems to be the fate of truly radical and talented artists, from Socrates to Flaubert, to become honoured members of the despised establishment.

As demonstrated, this need not always be for the worst, particularly since the rise of new communications technologies and the dominance of the Internet as a tool to spread previously hard to access ideas and information. For the first time in history, an artist can now break out of a small, discreet audience into the critical mass in virtually no time at all. As always, some will survive better than others, however the irony here is that, as a new millennium looms, we appear to be moving back to a time when the artist worked just as productively under the aegis of church or state. Some of the most exciting visual art today is not to be found in art galleries but in music videos, and yes, even advertising on television -- all initiated by corporations to advertise a product.


As an example, take a look at the hyper-kinetic techno music videos that meld kaleidoscopic computer generated images with a hypnotic synthesis of sound and image that can veer rapidly from Bruegel to 2001. On the mainstream front, Madonna's video for 'Frozen' seamlessly weaves Spanish and Middle Eastern death imagery with a surrealism and humour straight out of Magritte. On the Internet, hypertextuality allows a reader to access relevant interlinked texts at the click of a button, and even contribute to a text, thus challenging traditional notions of authorship and information flow.

Gloomy forecasts insist artists today have more in common with opportunistic marketing strategists than their noble artistic predecessors, who wrote or painted through the sheer bliss of inspiration. Going by American artist Jeff Koon's example, this may be true enough. But we also need to ask: Is this selling out, or is it just the shock of the new? It's hard to predict, as the future, in true blue heeler-style, has a way of coming back and giving us a not-so-subtle nip on the heel. But it would be premature to begin lamenting the good old days when art was Michelangelo and artists were burnt at the stake. The men in pony tails may control the credit cards, but, as someone who believes art is greater than life, I also believe that there will always be a Trojan horse inside the corporate citadel just waiting to spring Homer's techno-scribes under the cloak of darkness.

Dmetri Kakmi is a regular contributor to Sevenmag and the online Screaming Hyena.