FULL TEXT OF JULIUS BOKORU’S LECTURE ON LITERANATION
Topic: Effects of new Media on creative arts in Nigeria.
Date: 31st of March 2019
Time: 8:00 pm – 9:00pm
Moderator: Benneth Nwankwo
Moderator: Good evening everyone!
My name is Benneth Nwankwo and I’m your moderate for tonight’s lecture.
Please I entreat you all to remain calm while the lecture is on and if you have questions, kindly indicate.
Moving forward, our topic for tonight is “Effects of new Media on creative arts in Nigeria”
And our guest Julius Bokoru is here to give some insights.
Julius Bokoru who hails from Bayelsa State has dozens of articles published in both local and international journals, author of the Award Winning Memoir The Angel That Was Always There and a recipient of numerous writing awards including Ebedi International Residency, Fidelity Bank Creative Writing Fellow, Farafina International Creative Writing Fellowship, Nigerian Writers Series Fiction selection amongst others.
He has contributed and worked for various news outlets including Niger Delta Herald Newspapers, Daily Trust, Premium Times and others.
Welcome Julius!
Julius Bokoru: Thank you Ben, it’s warm in here and I’m pretty excited. Good evening all!
Hello and Good evening all, once again. Tonight we are talking about the effects of new media on the creative arts and I hope, very sincerely, that it would be an interactive session
It’s always easier to begin with definitions, and with definitions we shall begin. But before we delve, or even decide to, into the textbook definition of the new media, I’m convinced trying out our own definitions could help. So, who can give us a shot at what the new media is?
Moderator: “New media are forms of media that are native to computers, computational and relying on computers for redistribution.”
Julius Bokoru: This is as apt as a definition can be, thank you.
I think that for New Media the most fundamental thing is its hugely distinguishing interactiveness. There is mostly a certain level of activity expected of the receiver and this is what sets it apart from the old media (Newspapers, Television, Radio) You navigate yourself through the Internet, flitting from website to website like a house with multiple, perhaps infinite, number of rooms. You have the liberty to choose your content, what to consume. On WhatsApp you chat in a fascinating medium that supports quick messaging between persons. On facebook you generate posts and make comments and effect reactions in real time. On YouTube you choose what video to see. The running motif is interaction and a ping pong of information. From sender to receiver and promptly back to sender again. We don’t get this with the old or traditional media. There, it is a one way traffic with minimal options for timely reactions.
We head, ladies and gentlemen, to the other fundamental piece of the topic above which is CREATIVE ARTS. Before we attempt to know how New Media has affected it, we should try basic definitions or explanations of what Creative art is.
An attempt of any definition of creative arts would be hugely appreciated here before we move to the textbook definitions.
Moderator: “Refers to participation in a range of activities that allow for creative and imaginative expression, such as music, art, creative movement, and drama.”
Julius Bokoru: Perfect, once again.
Let’s look at this by Ameet Patel, MBA Kellogg School of Management (2007)
Creative arts means having the ability or power to create. It is characterized by originality of thought or inventiveness; having or showing imagination a creative mind.
When you hear “creative,” what springs to your brain? Do you consider specialists of each kind and train – artists like Mozart and Michael Jackson, painters like Picasso and Jackson Pollock, artists like Misty Copeland, on-screen characters and chiefs like Harrison Ford and Woody Allen, and creators like Jules Verne and J.K. Rowling?
Do you envision well known gems – works like the Mona Lisa, A Starry Night, “Spine chiller,” the Turkish March, Great Expectations, Harry, Potter, the Nutcracker, and Swan Lake? Or on the other hand maybe puts you can see workmanship in plain view is the thing that you imagine when you hear the “C” word – Carnegie Hall, The Louver, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art… .
Or, to make it more localised we can think of say, Gabriel Okara, Tuface Idibia, Stephanie Okerekere, studio 55 or any of the first rate photography studio in the country.
The creative arts can have a broad and expansive meaning.
Someone might very well insist that football matches, especially when played at very competent and skilled levels, can fall into the creative arts. Although this should be a more expressionist definition.
But isn’t your artistic nerve tickled when you see Lionel Messi slicing through defenders like hot knife on butter before tucking the ball at an exotic corner of the post?
Or when you see Ronaldo, brimming with determination against flawlessly green pitch, before curling a free kick home.
Even that electricity at the stance, the stunning clash of colours, the raw emotions, the passion, the flags and the complete spectre of it is so beautiful that it transcends what it is: football.
Even that electricity at the stance, the stunning clash of colours, the raw emotions, the passion, the flags and the complete spectre of it is so beautiful that it transcends what it is: football.
Think of what was going through that architect’s mind when he or she was designing the Aso Rock, or a Boeing plane or a ship or house hold appliances or well crafted speeches or furniture makers. The creative arts are even more present than we think. Look around you, look at your wristwatch, look at your clothes, look at your body, isn’t there some artistry there somewhere.
Having touched on New Media which are the digital evolution of the media to interactive means and creative arts which is, to me, the physical exhibition or creation of inner imaginations, we shall now look at how these two interacts, especially in a way that affects, whether positively or negatively, new media.
On this, I imagine it to be a coin of two sides. By all fairness it is not possible to give an all round negativity to this very destined interaction and it is equally not achievable that we produce an all round positive points.
So I will do a back and forth, on negatives and positives, of the effect of New Media on Creative Arts in Nigeria.
NEW MEDIA MAKES PRODUCTION OF ARTS COST EFFICIENT. Let me give a person story here. In 2012 when I began writing my first book, I started out with my laptop mini before switching to my phone. Apart from maybe the first three chapters, I think, everything else was written on my phone. After finishing the work, which is a memoir of my Mother, I had know idea of what to do to it because I felt it was a very personal story. But then I saw a Call For Entries somewhere on facebook for the Nigerian Writers Series maiden collection. Frantically I submitted using the email icon on my phone. A year later my book was announced as one of the leading entries and I became a published author without spending even a kobo of my money. If we take this story about 10 years backwards, 2002, I may have had to write it on a notebook because Personal Computers were not very personal then in Nigeria. I can’t write my book in a cyber cafe, of course. I would have spent thousands of Naira typing that book and I must have spent good money trying to send my manuscript either by email or by conventional mail to the judges. So with the New Media an artist doesn’t need to bother about spending much on his/her work. This point is clearly a positive.
EASE/CONVENIENCE OF CREATING ARTS. With apps like Microsoft Word a writer can conveniently write and edit his works. With apps like Corel Draw an artist can easily make images. With Virtual DJ many musicians make good tunes even with their phones. It’s easier to generate art content with New Media than before. This is also another positive.
EASY, QUICK ACCESS TO VALUABLE INFORMATION. Did I mention I saw the advert for Nigerian Writers Series Call for entries on Facebook? Yes, I did. I submitted my work and became one of ten works chosen in hundreds of entries. The Internet is awash with writing, painting, music, etc information. And these information breeds many opportunities. Even for those seeking to horn their skills, there are quick info on how to begin. Do we call this another positive? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we should.
DISTRACTION TO THE CREATIVE PROCESS. It’s very normal for an individual to storm the Internet to get definitions of words or assistance for something arts related only to stumble on the latest pictures of Regina Daniels or the most recent episode of Game Of Thrones. A friend might just decide that is the best time to initiate a chat. The Internet is disruptive to the creative stream. This has to be a negative.
DISCOURAGES ORIGINALITY. With so many applications ready to do almost anything for us, laziness inevitably seeps into the human brain. I hear there’d soon be a Novel writing machine. All you have to do is just input basic details: names of characters, setting, time, plot, themes etc and the machine handles the rest. That can only spell disaster for writing as we know it. This seems to be on the negative spectrum, don’t you think?
CREATIVE ARTS LOSING VALUE. With the advent of the new media, Creative arts is declining in value and so many factors are responsible for this chiefly of them is that the creative industry is now flooded with ‘artists’ there is a reason the artists is in quotation marks. There are lots of pretend artists out there and they offer an expensive distraction from the real artists. These artists are brought to the fore, in the first place, by the New Media. We can consider Bobrisky an artists because he / she, of course, is a celebrity created by the New Media. What is difficult to tell is the artistic skill set of Bobrisky. Unlike the conventional media, then New Media has no scrutiny and an appalling level of intellectual perception.
A READY MARKET. With the New Media marketing and publicity isn’t as tedious and as expensive as it once used to be. You could market yourself on your Facebook profile or Twitter handle or Instagram page etc. There are millions of people there. A lot of young artists have had their breakthrough by posting a really nice work they did. It gets shared and it gets to the notice of a powerhouse in that field and the boom! A star is made.
UNCRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF ART WORKS. Some poets might be posting self-written poems on their walls, getting great feedback and huge commendations. But the truth is that is the social media and the real experts in poetry are not one of your ‘fans’. Those fans hail and like on a purely pedestrian level. This is one reason most so called Facebook or Internet celebrities, as they are called, find it hard getting anything real opportunity with a real outfit. There is no chance for improvement because they are floating on the euphoria of their social media fandom. The most successful creative artists are seldom on Social media.
Since we have overlapped the stipulated time we have to stop here now.
The effects of the New Media on Creative Arts will get even more pronounced with the passage of time.
The evolution of new media happens very fast, maybe faster than we can comprehend.
And with the inevitable passage of time, with the supersonic advancement of the new media, the effects of new media on creative arts will get increasingly vast and increasing phenomenal. Maybe, just maybe, we may one day, in Nigeria and beyond, find ourselves struggling to save the Creative arts from the jaws of the New Media. Thank you very much
LiteraNation 