SIMON The revenue stream for what I do is less and less guaranteed to the entities that fund my productions. The democratization of the digital age offers notable benefits, but nonetheless poses an equally extraordinary threat to the highest end in a variety of media. “Information wants to be free” is the cry of so many new-media mavens. But I’ve scanned my production budgets — which are far from the most costly outlays for HBO and Time Warner — and, hey, information is not free, at least not the information that I create.

D’AMOUR It is nearly impossible now to live in a city with a part-time “money job” and the rest of your week to discover your art. If you wake up every morning in a panic about money and security, it shuts down a lot of opportunity for creativity. This sentiment, of course, opens up a whole can of worms about privilege and who is allowed to take the risks of art making. I’m white and grew up middle class (academic dad, high school teacher mom). They rarely supported me financially in my art making, but they always supported me emotionally. I always had a stable home to return to, if the whole art making thing fell apart.

HUANG I think it’s great. Failure is incredible. A lot of the things we’ve hung onto and leaned on, thinking they were forever, are falling apart, and people are being forced to think for themselves. For a while, Americans felt invincible, or that our economy was forever, but it’s not. We gave up a lot to the idea of trickle-down economics, intellectual property law, the market, neo-liberalism, and look where it’s gotten us? There is no middle class, there are no safe jobs, and when it’s cold outside, people start to develop skills. They start to question, and that’s when a society becomes dangerous in a good way. It’s easy to silence and pacify people when the money is flowing, but when the well runs dry, you see the wheels start turning.

COLE You don’t have to wait on a label, you can make your own music, release it yourself. The power is in your hands. But it’s harder in the sense that there’s so much to compete with. Overall, technology is amazing to artists, the more access to make or be heard, the better.

GRANIK Artists and their production co-workers are generally in a better position than most other types of producers, thanks to their greater visibility in the public sphere. A fruit picker or a miner [earns] a fraction of what a corporate executive in those industries earns.

BURNS Perhaps outer circumstances seem different, but the essential challenges of the artist remain the same. It is always hard. As it should be. Complicated times are no excuse.