The Consciousism Manifesto
What is the intention behind our creative expression? Do we create to contribute or to accumulate, to give or to get? Consciousism is not limited to a specific style or time period, it is defined by the intention behind the work, the why.
Art is mainly categorised based on the manifested expression and the skilfulness of the artist. Which means that we can be mesmerised and glorify art with a negative message just because it is a beautiful production and that it can catch our attention.
But we need to ask ourself what values it is promoting and if it has a positive impact on our lives and the world at large? When we go beyond the visual expression and try to see the intention and purpose behind the art, that is where we find Consciousism; if it comes from a place of kindness and the desire to contribute to the happiness of all then it is Consciousism.
Art is a very powerful tool to share ideas but also to manipulate desires through advertising, PR and propaganda. These days many of the worlds greatest artist work with advertising art where they give away their gift to benefit corporate interests so they themself can feed into the loop of consumerism and live an extravagant lifestyle. Not everyone but many fall for the temptations of accumulation. Me myself have been part of the loop until I started reflecting over my pictures on cover stories on glossy magazines, sitting next to newspapers with headlines like "depression among our children are increasing", "anorexia increasing among our children"
Art transcends race, gender, borders and class. Whether you’re a CEO, a bishop, a gangster rapper or a school girl, on a primal level, we all can feel the energy that art transmits. Art both connects and disconnects. Art affects and spread societal values.
I am inspired by the positive impact that we, as artists, can have once we realise the potential of our gifts. The gifts we’ve been given not to keep for our self but to keep on giving. We can encourage future generations to think beyond just wanting to be seen or being the best. Simply put, we can elevate humanity if we choose to.
What we consume shapes how we think.
How we think shapes what we create.
What we create shapes the world.
Art does not exist in a vacuum. Every image, word, and story is a reflection of the internal soil it grew from. For centuries, art movements have wrestled over form, style, technique, and subject. Consciousism leaves the surface behind. It does not ask what art looks like. It asks where art comes from.
The Two Coordinates of Creation
All human expression flows from one of two intentions:
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The Architecture of Accumulation: Driven by power, ego, fear and status. It seeks attention through competition and ultimately winning.
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The Architecture of Contribution: Driven by wisdom, healing, gratitude, kindness and unity. It seeks to restore our connection to the Earth and each other.
Our Creative Social Responsibility (CSR)
As artists, our attention is our currency, and our output is our legacy. We bear a profound responsibility to audit our mental diet. We cannot cultivate a new story for humanity if we continue to immerse our minds in the imagery of exploitation, violence, greed, hyper-commercialism, and algorithmic noise. When we consume only that noise, we mistake it for the absolute truth. But it is only one side of the coin.
The magic of life, the gift of being human, and the profound joy available in every single breath when we are anchored in gratitude, that is also a story we can choose listen to. To do so, we must actively override our human instincts. For millennia, our primal survival conditioning forced us to fixate strictly on danger. That conditioning kept us alive when threats were physical. Today, however, violence has become mainstream entertainment, available on almost every screen, everywhere.
This evolutionary glitch distorts our reality. It blinds us to the magic we are naturally a part of, tricking us into believing we must constantly consume to be complete, and compete to be happy. It is a game we can never win, because we are merely the markers on the board.
Reclaiming our creative power begins with understanding this manipulation. We must realize that the prime real property in today's world is our own neural pathways. Our brains have been hijacked to the point where they send us internal notifications even when we are nowhere near a phone. That persistent, phantom notification within forces us to check, and check, and check, driven by a deep fear of missing out.
This is exactly where our Creative Social Responsibility must step in. As artists, we need to step up and claim accountability for the mental health of our children and the future of humanity. We must ask ourselves the ultimate question: Does our art contribute to children feeling whole and complete as they are, or are we conditioning them to believe they must consume to feel complete?