How do you make a living as an artist when the big platforms price your work at zero? How do you get your big break when all the institutions that used to discover young artists have been decimated by the tech monopolies? In this episode, I talk to essayist and critic William Deresiewicz about his book, The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech.

BILL'S WEBSITE

billderesiewicz.com

WORKS CITED

-Deresiewicz, William. The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech. New York, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2020.

-Khan, Lina M. “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” The Yale Law Journal 126, no. 3 (January 2017). https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox.

-Davis, Ben. 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2013.

-Graeber, David. Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. 1st edition. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018.

-Deresiewicz, William. “Stages of Grief: What the Pandemic Has Done to the Arts.” Harper’s Magazine, May 12, 2021. https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/stages-of-grief-what-the-pandemic-has-done-to-the-arts/.

-Lanier, Jaron. “Opinion | Jaron Lanier Fixes the Internet.” The New York Times, September 23, 2019, sec. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/23/opinion/data-privacy-jaron-lanier.html.

MUSIC

-Theme music and consultation: Georgina Rossi, www.georginarossi.com

-Interlude: Alban Berg, 4 Stücke for clarinet and piano, Op.5; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Steven Beck, piano

SPONSOR

Capital A is sponsored by Shoestring Press in Brooklyn: www.shoestringpressny.com