Artist Manifesto: Ruthless Honesty in an Age of Performative Positivity

or how to get REAL

Curatorial Note by AMV:

I’m AMV, and this is a piece by Kartik. He is a cinephile and graduate of the reputed & refuted - Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), an institution that, depending on the winds of fortune, either sends its disciples to Cannes or the trash canes. Over the chilly winters of the NCR, Kartik and I have, while eating momos fried in Palm oil, been thinking about around the mysterious idea of the artist's life. This phase of conversations got triggered by restored screening of Antonioni’s La Notte in Delhi. Great cinema, as it tends to do, seeped into our bones and refused to leave, lingering like a ghost.

Kartik isn’t just a cinephile; he’s also a rapper, a historian of hip-hop, and, more recently, a devotee of the memoirs of Antonioni and Tarkovsky. Our conversations wandered into the terrain of authenticity in art—what it means to create something real in an age of relentless simulacra. I urged him to put his thoughts to paper, no filters, no censors, just the raw pulse of his mind. What emerged is this piece—part diary of a loner, part existential map, part stream of conscious rambling, part artist’s meditation (while inhaling 430 AQI air) on the chaos of meaning.

Given Kartik’s background as a rapper, I’d suggest reading this as you might listen to a rap verse—let it flow like poetry or a stray page from a novel. Or perhaps like a rat ate pages from Kafka’s book at Faqir Chand bookstore and vomited near Munirka. This article not meant for those tied to the modern obsession with strict realism, a mindset that often limits how we interpret art and ideas, reducing everything to the literal and leaving no room for nuance or abstraction or play.

This was my little act of curation. Now, over to Kartik’s words.

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(This piece is meant to be paired with the hyperlink below, which is not merely additional but integral to the experience. The writing is inspired by and structured around the escalation of the accompanying music, as much as it is shaped by fragments of life itself. Like most music and cinema, this piece is designed to be consumed in one uninterrupted flow, free from external stuff that disrupts the connection between text, sound and reader.

Yes, it’s that phoney. Use headphoney.)

há-zá-má - A Red Sky In The Morning (2023 Remastered)

In the past, I have fallen into the compulsion to find innate goodness, rationality, hidden winter arcs and deep romance in almost anything and everything.

The after taste is no better than microwaved cafe coffee day veg puff.
Love for a broken mind feels like botox truth, artificially augmented but devoid of the raw lifeblood of humanity: Hate.

Hate is the acid reflux of undigested life.

Poetry is that vomit the poet makes to get going and not choke.

It is not an opportunity. For me poetry has no utility except to just be vomited on the cold pavement while still clenching on to your last tuborg like your first lover. Artists are often stuck in a loop of chase for grasping truth. It is hidden inside a Basqiat work, discovered in the montage of a Maya Deren film, Nusrat Fateh Ali khan’s ululations or a glimmer through Setsuko Hara’s eyes in Tokyo story.

I’m coming close to accepting that truth is a fleeting high that surrounds me but it cannot be grasped. Then why hold dear the second copy of it I bought on student discount in my early twenties as tragic nihilism, reckless political action or an angsty romance to die for?

A cluster of fungal growth surrounds the Truth mushroom. The clones will tick all boxes but my trip is pure placebo. Alexa told me it is on the 3rd page of google search. I’m too distracted to visit the 3rd page. After a point it is too late to realise that the truth I believed in was not the reality, it was just paid to be on the first page of google search result. What place truth holds today? Depends on its brand strategy and campaign budget. Teenage was like the first page, I was busy exploring the surface. They say you have time, and I didn’t need to look deeper.

Second page is the twenties, I start off as thinking what I’m looking for is just at the corner waiting for me to discover it and then I switch to another tab out of boriyat, despair and aimlessness. Some of us keep switching tabs like characters from a Fellini film. I think, maybe I should not have shunned the cowardly hater in me to ignite my intellect and move on to the third page?

I’m reminded of Soviet filmmaker Andre Tarkovsky respectfully dissing filmmakers he deeply admired like Antonioni and Fellini in his personal diary and later in one of his interviews.

Once referring to the Italian lott he mentions,

“They are not what they seem from a distance”

In another diary entry:

Where are Rossellini, Cocteau, Renoir, Vigo ? The great—who are poor in spirit? Where has poetry gone? Money, money, money and fear. . . Fellini is afraid, Antonioni is afraid . . . The only one who is afraid of nothing is Bresson.

I always wondered what he meant, was it just envy or ego even in his diary?
I’m not much intrigued by that chain of thought right now.
Hate like sexuality is an ever present pheromone between two humans. Whether one is with their lover, caring for their grandparents or sharing an elevator with a stranger on whose lips I read an existential restlessness but maybe he is just waiting to spit his vimal in the corner as soon as I exist.

What is remarkable is that his hate was what made me look deeper into films of folks I accepted as masters and revered. In one of his interviews, Tarkovsky is extremely respectful in reverencing the initial works of Michelangelo Antonioni who was also his very close friend. Surprisingly, his public criticism of Michelangelo's later work, Red Dessert is so concise yet slightly personal that even as a dear friend, he might have been jolted to read.
But that hate is the last kiss of a lover who felt betrayed. It is as important as the first time they held hands.

The Red Desert is the worst of his films after The Cry. The colour is pretentious, quite unlike Antonioni usually, and the editing is subservient to the idea of color. It could have been a superb film, tremendously powerful, if only it had been in black-and-white. If The Red Desert had been in black-and-white, Antonioni wouldn't have got high on pictorial aesthetics, he wouldn't have been so concerned with the pictorial side of the film, he wouldn't have shot those beautiful landscapes, or Monica Vitti's red hair against the mists. He would have been concentrating on the action instead of making pretty pictures. In my view the colour has killed the feeling of truth. If you compare The Red Desert with The Night [La Notte] or The Eclipse [L'Eclisse]it's obvious how much less good it is.

• Tarkovsky (To The Screen, 12 December 1966)

Recently in an interview, Zizek spoke on Kieslowski and Tarkovsky.
Kieslowski’s trajectory is astonishing: active since the mid 1960s, he crafted documentaries throughout the ’70s, transitioned to fiction in the ’80s, and delivered peak work like Dekalog during the second decade of his career. By the ’90s, he dominated world cinema with his supposed masterpiece, the Three Colors trilogy.

I first discovered Kieslowski through his documentaries, Blind Chance and Camera Buff, then later stumbled upon Dekalog. These films felt raw, brimming with a truth that I didn’t understand but somehow it dissolved into my consciousness. Yet, when I watched his Three Colors trilogy, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. The films were undeniably beautiful, celebrated in cinephile circles and revered academically especially in classrooms choking on psychoanalytic film theory. Yet, the visceral honesty I found in Blind Chance or Dekalog seemed to have dissolved. I dismissed it , afraid to voice my dissatisfaction in the face of the filmmaker's towering reputation amongst cinephiles.

Zizek, after writing on Kieslowski all his life, has now turned even more tighter with his criticism of the Polish master’s cinema. Recently in an interview Zizek expressed his dissatisfaction for Kislowski’s later films after he left Poland.

I laughed, not out of mockery, but because his words aligned with what I had long buried inside, being too intimidated to articulate this earlier, retreating from the long beard, kalamkari shirt crowd that lionized these film screenings without question.

Being true to one’s hate even when articulation is muddled, meditating on it can be truly liberating for an artist.

“... one does not confuse the role of a critic with that of a prophet.”

- André Bazin, What is cinema

Criticism isn’t about judgment or authority but about seeing more clearly. Yet today, critics who are not authentic haters often rush to slap liberal checkboxes on films, while social justice filmmakers counterbalance poetry with didactic images, creating digestible beauty for guilt ridden audiences and shut off rage bait critics.

Looking back, if I’d trusted my dissatisfaction with the three colours trilogy, I might have arrived at some deeper peace earlier, without waiting for Zizek to articulate it for me.

Here, hate is not a verdict but a tool to navigate art, not to rule over it.

This realisation, though late, has become a reminder: Hating does not need to be the end of thought but the beginning of clarity.

For introverted artists who are not so articulate enough for a Kiran Nadar panel, Hate is a kala hit to shoo off blood sucking privileged mosquitoes who masquerade as art enthusiasts but are merely suave yappers. It is a tool to keep away from intellectual intimidation and if one cannot point at what exactly they are feeling or saying, at least one is able to calmly reply ,

“No, I don’t mean/want that”.

'Before you start to speak, consider what it is that you are going to say. Say only what is necessary and proper. Do not boast of your reason, and do not think that you know more than others. The essence of the monastic life is self-reproach and the conviction that you are the most unworthy of all.'

— Abba Isaac. ( Tarkovsky, Time Within Time: The Diaries)

Kendrick Tarkovsky

Maybe an artist should nurture their hate, it can sometimes lead them to realising/creating something profoundly raw but sincere.

But my hate here does not have to be Fake Hate; out of fear or low on commitment. I’m completely honest to the act of Authentic Hate.

A very crude example comes up. Sometimes Hate like stupidity, needs commitment. Once, in a dingy Ghaziabad gym, I saw a boy chug a Red Bull, ego lifting to prove a point to another steroid junkie he had some beef with. I could taste the regret in his can before he even finished it. He tossed the can in a corner and went for the deadlift. Poor boy snapped his spine.

But here, Hate’s only impulse is desire for the other’s collapse.

Firstly, what a waste of caffeine?

I wonder what Balzac who reportedly drank 50 cups of coffee a day would say about this red bull boy. Something on the lines of “He drank the Red Bull for wings but sought to cut another’s!”
But 50 cups? Maybe Balzac just needed a Sting. Anyway…

Of course, that act was out of inferiority and resentment which might be acceptable till a certain age but not for too long sir.

The specimen is extreme but enough to illustrate how impulsive hate stains the being.

For an artist, it could push one into making didactic art calling for validation. While sometimes, it could be a scream for attention from an oppressed artist, the unthought imitation and performance of this romanticism around it isn’t alone enough to create something of value.

It largely plays on the creator and audience’s ego.

Ego is the Nirmala Sitaraman between the observer and art. Inevitable tax. It’s the immediate decadence of beauty.

I’m guilty of being the, let me quickly shove this idea through my identitarian lens art kid. While at the outset it might hold some truth, it only worsens when being a fake hater in liberal spaces further feeds into righteous aggression of self promotion activism. Fake hate, unlike Authentic Hate, is only reactionary and is fleeting with no impulse of its own. If I play along, it will wash out when the object of hate loses authority. But so will I…

But fake hate could feel equally real, anxious knots in my stomach, painful tightening of vocal chords choking on words I know I won’t say with escalation of decibels as sentences are getting longer where I start off with something jarring to cut the other midway while my clenched feet turning white as my chest throbs with the blood I want the entire world smeared in before the sentence ends but a full stop. Fully stops me. Full stops in the English language are speed breakers on the highway to insanity.

A break before I breakdown.
The cornerstone of civic sense.

A smoke break to pause and reflect on the art of hating.

So I acknowledge that most of the impulsive resentment is my own reflection. But can I evolve my hate into something apart from the usual hangover of self inflicted pain and stop from throwing my pain on someone else.

I don’t know why pain acts like the mother of hate.

I try to let my mother and Nani be. Let them blame one another but they are all they got. Maybe that’s for another day…

To decontextualize Robert Bresson, who famously said, “Note mat karo feel karo feel!”, Fake hate only understands but authentic hate feels.

Authentic hate is the true guardian of beauty. When beauty is held close and sacred but unlike brahmanical consciousness here it does not come from a hierarchical system. Hence, does not solely operate out of insecurity, contempt for the ‘inferior’ or reactionary resentment towards the immediate ‘superior’.

What takes space, is a longing for a better future with all the cynicism being asked to make space for hope more like hearing “Pehla dabba mahilaon ke liye arakshit hai. Purush yatrioyn se anurodh hai mahilaon ke liye arakshit dibbe me na bethen. Aisa karna dandaniya apradh hai”

Authentic Hate can serve as a strict meditative gang tattoo for self preservation to guard the creative soul.

It is a DIY kid - conscious, relaxed but in no hurry to be loudest in the party.

Authentic hate could possess the ability to push the art discourse forward while punching out traditional morality.

The French new wave filmmakers were mad cinephiles but their astute ruthless criticism fell like molotov on the landscape of cinema discourse in europe, jolting the barricades separating commercial films, art films, high art, low art.

They fought for Hitchcock to be held as a master while he was disregarded as a mere entertainer by American critics but also shot down the inflated balloons of hollow commercial cinema aesthetics. Authentic haters are the ones that ignite movements but not afraid to leave a party before the acoustic guitar hinge guy turns it all stale.

Authentic haters can sometimes rescue us from the networking hungry nauseating positivity that surrounds us in film festivals and art galleries where critics have turned into promotional interviewers. ‘Loving’ cinema has always been the Jai shree ram of such spaces.

Authentic hate takes a piece of art,

rough and jagged, tosses it around,

kisses it, rolls it, smokes it, spits on it.

Like coming across a VHS copy of a copy of a copy of Om dar Badar. Let it cut me a little?

Scratch my ass with its rough edges on a sober depressing Wednesday night.

Then I’ll see what to do with it before turning into an elite art simp hoarding it in my kala ghoda tote bag, softening its edges, cutting nuance to fit into the square of my trending hashtag.

Sartre wrote on this pattern in literary consumption:

“Idealism, psychologism, determinism, utilitarianism, the

spirit of seriousness—this was what the bourgeois writer

had to reflect to his public first of all. He was no longer

asked to restore the strangeness and opacity of the world,

but to dissolve it into elementary subjective impressions

which made it easier to digest; nor was he asked to discover

the most intimate movements of his heart at the very depths

of his freedom, but to bring his 'experience' face to face with

that of his readers. All his works were at once inventories of

bourgeois appurtenances, psychological reports of an expert

which invariably tended to ground the rights of the élite and

to show the wisdom of institutions, and handbooks of

civility. The conclusions were decided in advance; the

degree of depth permitted to the investigation was also

established in advance; the psychological motives were

selected; the very style was regulated. The public feared no

surprise. It could be bought with its eyes closed. But literature

had been assassinated.”

- Jean Paul Sartre

The idea of Authentic Hating is not a pat on the back self help nudge but an attempt for original intellectual journey from the germination of the emotion that has long been shamed to accommodate loud sweet mediocrity.

Most haters are always resting on the margins of every scene out of fear, cringe or resentment. But they might stand a chance because aren’t most Haters also emo ex lovers with the cheap ass whatsapp status:
“NO MORE HUGS 👎”