When I started out as an artist in the mid 80’s, I was young and had tremendous energy and enthusiasm for the arts. I had a steely determination to move from the analytical and critical headset that I had been taught at school and college, which I had excelled in, to the somewhat unknown and unknowable world of the arts as a performer, practitioner and facilitator.

I got hands-on training in street theatre at Bretton Hall from Charivari or The Salami Brothers, as they were known on the Festival circuit. A whole new world opened up to me. I learnt how to eat fire, breathe fire, juggle, walk on stilts, lie on a bed of nails, dance on broken glass, escape from chains, ropes, handcuffs, to emerge naked from a mail sack, mind read, present magic tricks in the round and hold an audience in my thrall with a silver tongue and attitude.

I learnt about storytelling and theatre from Taffy Thomas, who helped me weave a narrative that drew on and built on the skills I had already learnt. I managed to refine my skills, adding bagpipes and assorted musical instruments to my bag of performing tricks. All this took tremendous focus, painstaking attention, research, planning and a steely determination to succeed and make my work as a performer pay.

I was lucky to attend ‘Fool Time’ at Bristol Circus Space with Bim Mason, Franki Anderson, Guy Dartnell and John Lee, who taught me how to access my inner fool and be playful, with no fear, in front of an audience. The values of tenderness, humanity, humour, and the hilarity that a true understanding of human nature and its dark side can bring when challenged by circumstance, fate, or self-interest.

In the world of Street Theatre, I had a community of supportive friends, fellow artists and performers exploring the obscure and interesting: pyrotechnics, circus theatre, illusions, performance styles, music. We revelled in what we saw, shared and tried out. We met regularly at events and often visited each other during quiet times. We drew close and formed strong bonds in the face of challenging work conditions, common interests and experiences.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings me on to what I want to discuss: as artists, we need Friction, Grit and Community. They are the prerequisites to creating art that is human and has value.

Friction – art needs to be challenging and push at the edges of our experiences; it must present us with an activity in which we can think, make, or say something new. This isn’t easy and requires a lot of cognitive thought and effort. Which brings me on to

Grit – is energy, passion, focus, determination, resolve. Having the power, patience and intelligence to manifest an intention, bringing an idea into the real world for all to see and share.

Community – your audience, real people who engage with your work, give it sustained and focused attention. Audiences and artists who ask why, how, what, and when. Moving from passive to active engagement, becoming co-creators and fellow explorers.

This is only part of the picture; we have to add human Intelligence, independence, agency, humanity, calculated risk-taking, humour, a joy in life and living shared devils and angels.

AI cheats us out of all of this; it robs us by providing quick, easy answers that stop us from thinking and engaging with the ideas in our minds that need friction, grit and community to grow. It provides quick, easy results and content creation, but as artists, we need to be better than Silicon Valley’s quick fix. We need to be thinking longer and harder and articulating ideas that are pertinent, impertinent and disruptive to the billionaire class.

People think that AI is about computers getting smarter; it’s really about human agency getting cheaper, becoming biddable, and eventually becoming obsolete. Empowerment is the pitch, dependency is the business model. Stop trading your intuition for convenience. Every time you let an algorithm make your choice.

The system owns the path of least resistance; don’t walk it