Sooo, I’m back in NYC for a small stretch and I am happy to
be whirled around with seeing old friends, making new, and absorbing that
special type of energy that only exists in this city. I have also been going to
art things, museums, shows, openings, parties, drinks and a general rush to
settle and to spark things for the near and far futures. Whilst doing all these
things I have also been reminded of that ever present other type of NYC energy
and that is this sense that there is too little time with too much to do.
Life is busy, beautifully so, but in talking to and
participating in this pace there is this gnawing anxiety that seems to consume
almost all that participate in the art world and that is the fear of missing
out, or more truncatedly known as FoMO. So this is basically the fear that your
friends/peer group is having more fun, has more access, and is somewhere better
then where you are. The tool that most triggers this fear is social media,
which allows our seamless windowing into others’, lives, known and unknown. It’s
such a tragedy this FoMO-ing because it actually sucks up your time and makes
you actually miss the life you have. But, we are human, we all have this
feeling at times, I know I do, but what I want to quickly reflect on is how it
is permeating the art world.
Having a conversation the other day, the topic of traveling
around the world was brought up. Travel is great, new topographies, realities,
people, and culture, all great, great, great. What is not great, which I see so
prevalent in the art world, is this badge collecting of traveling almost solely
in conjunction with the art fair, biennale, circuit. Seriously, you (everyone)
going to Miami, going to Basel, going to Paris, going to London, going to Hong
Kong, going to Dubai, going to Glasgow, going to Kassel, going to Los Angeles,
going to Brussels is number one so utterly boring and two literally killing the
planet. Like thanks you “just killed a polar bear,” as my friend said.
This type of mobility is equivalent to the lifestyle of the
very rich in both money and time. Time, more then money, is the new capital and
having time is an equivocation of one’s bohemian actualization. The art fair circuit
has been created for the super rich with flexibility with time and the galleries,
artists and the rest of the art eco-system feels a need to participate as these
are the settings money is made, networks are nurtured, and the general illusion
of freedom and rarefied elitism is maintain. Artists, curators, and writers,
save up their money, take time off their day jobs and try to jimmy some sort of
room and ride in order to converge to these places and to bask in this
background of this crazy illusion. Sure it might be fun, sure you might get
into THE party, or see THE performance or go to THE house but it’s fun like how
spring break might be fun to some people and every year, every month, every few
weeks, you can go do this, and people do this and they think that somehow that
means something. But after a while it is the same party, the same people, it
just happens to be in a new city that you barely see and it all feels like
hedonistic hell. If you can throw your hands up and say ‘fuck it’ and just
throw your cares to the party gods for a few days, do so. But if you think
that being there is some sort of measure of something then, hunny, wake up.
Speaking of travel, why is this intense type of jet set
lifestyle so en vogue? While besides the thing about money and time mentioned
above, it has become the now expected practice of curators to be insanely
mobile. The recent New Yorker profile and Hans Ulrich Obrist by D.T. Max[i]
is a testament to this in that he has built his curatorial visibility and methodology
on traveling, being and going to everything and everywhere. He is certainly not
alone. We all know people that are either in the thick of it or want to be in
the thick of it that are everywhere always. The ones where it seems humanly
impossible all the places they appear. They go to hundreds of shows, events,
and talks a month. They are in this and that group show; they are contributing
to this and that publication. Their names become this bleeping light of how
busy they are and how busy you could be if you just tried harder.
Impressive? Yes. Depressing? Totally. Impressive because
there really are those types of people who live, breath and shit art and they
should just let that freak flag fly but the depressing thing is that a lot of
those everywhere-people are just social climbers that are diluting the pool
with all their efforts. This is a strange case of FoMO because those that are
like this are the biggest sufferers but also the greatest producers of it. What
does that equal? Win/win? Lose/lose?
Everyone wants to go to the party but you just aren’t invited.
I don’t know how many times this past week alone I was told about a party that
so and so is at, is having, is going to, was invited to, is coming from. Those
parties that equal your tier in the art world sort of parties. There are tiers
in life and there are most certainly tiers in high school. Oops did I say high school?
I meant the art world. Snippiness aside, there is tiers and there is this
bizarre thing where people really get a certain type a way about it. Like
salivating at the idea that their friend is at a certain thing and that they
are in some way aurically invited or that they are soon to be. These parties elicit
the most intense sort of art FoMO because it is so personal. It equates either
if you are known or not. An invitation equals existence. If you are not invited
you do not exist to that host/hostess/group of people and that is like
stabby-stabby to your idea of self. Not a good look. Obviously it is a not very
nice feeling to feel left out but the thing is, is that one is actually not missing
out at all. This is just such an obvious statement I’m not sure how else to say
it.
Where does this all come from? Well, there are studies now
that explain the phemon of FoMO and why we do it and what that all means. A
study was done by Dr. Przybylski for the journal, Computers in Human Behavior, entitled Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlated of fear of missing
out[ii]
and was published in 2013. The study collected
data on the spectrums of FoMO and analyzed the data in what that might imply
and what it might mean for future research. In essence it shows the prevalence
of FoMO and explains who it effects and why. The most interesting
contextualization from this study is that FoMO is a symptom of a lack in psychic
health. In psychology there is a thing called Self-determination theory (SDT)
which is, “effective self regulation and psychological health are based on the
satisfaction of three basic psychological needs: competence – the capacity to
effectively act on the world, autonomy – self-authorship or personal
initiative, and relatedness – closeness or connectedness with others.” As their
study progresses, it appears that those with low SDT abilities have tendency to
have higher levels of FoMO. These outlined three basic psychological needs may
seem obvious but I think it is foundational in how we look at ourselves and the
baseline of how we interact in the art world. Those who are artists or have an
alternate drive and philosophy of living have this arrogance of their
subjective capacities and non-normalcy but in truth there is just as much
dysfunction in basic interactions of others and the nurture of the self. Another finding made in
this study states that younger males (under 30) are the group with the highest
levels of FoMO. Just throwing that out there to trigger ideas of male dominance
in the arts, in business, life in general maybe being related to this
impulse.
So what’s the point of this? Nothing really, it’s just on my
mind. You know, the whole - what does it mean to live right now and why does it
feel so bizarrely odd – type of thoughts. The fear of missing out is something
I have felt all my life (violins play softly in the background). But maybe
because I have basically been left out so much of my life I look at the current
state of FoMO and how it manifests in the art world and I just shrug it off
and think it all so very mellow-dramatically-tragic. Being left out hurts when
you’re six and the whole class is invited to the party and you’re not. Not when
you are twenty-six and you weren’t invited to the Cindy Sherman dinner. Wipe
your tears, step away from your mobile devices and get drunk, make out, dance,
hug a cat, help someone fix something, do something, anything that will make
you feel fabulous, alive, have a pulse. Anything, is better then staring at a
screen wishing you were somewhere else.
[i]
Max, D.T., The Art of Conversation: The
curator who talked his way to the top, The New Yorker Magazine, Issue Dec
8, 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/08/art-conversation
[ii]
Przybylski, A, Murayama, K. DeHaan, C.R., Gladwell, V. Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing
out, in Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 29, Issue 4, July 2013 pp.
1841-1848. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213000800#
*You can also take a sample questionnaire that was used in the study above to rate your FoMO level. http://www.ratemyfomo.com/
