Artists often choose to remain silent when it comes to social discussion, whether because they believe the art will speak for itself or for other reasons, they take a pass when called upon to raise their voices and address the important questions. Because of this the amount of dialogue within the arts community suffers and a group of strong, passionate, creative individuals is broken into so many little pieces to be ineffective rather than a strong, informed community.

We at Empty Kingdom want to build a place not simply for beautiful art, but beautiful people as well. As we are sure you all are. We want to see a strong arts community capable not only of speaking it’s mind in a single, unified voice, but one large and powerful enough to get what they are asking for. In this Roundtable we are seeking to provide one of the many building blocks to build such a community.

But how do we stitch together so many disparate elements? One step at a time. We share our love of art with you, so we know that we have common ground. Here we present to you dialogue. The Roundtable series addresses important and often ignored issues that are very real to artists and the arts community. Addiction, sexuality, lust, love, beauty, give us your ears and the time and we’ll try and address them all. You’ve done us the great honor of coming to our site, now take whatever you read in the following roundtable, however much you manage to read, and go talk about it. This is how we create dialogue, this is how we create community. Good communities take hard work and we’re all in this together.

Prompt

Can you please give your definition of drugs? Robotussin can be used to relieve congestion, but when taken in high doses, can be used as a dissociative to trip. When does a substance become a drug? And when does drug use cross the boundary from recreational, to habitual, to abusive? Can that be measured either finitely or abstractly? Is that person dependent?

Dali, Van Gogh, Giger, there are many famous artists who used drugs, there are also plenty who did not, such as Michelangelo, Matisse, or Ansel Adams. Do you think there is something to be gained in terms of artistic capabilities from the use of drugs? It is within the definition of creative types to have thoughts that are nontypical, nonlinear and fantastical. Drugs can open a door to worlds that are even more fantastical, to perceptions even less in line with reality. Do you think that as an artist, such non-rational thought processes are necessary for the sake and advancement of art, whether drug induced or otherwise? Do you think that there is a particular difference between the art of drug users and abstainers?

Joram Roukes

The common term for pharmaceutics I think, is drugs. I think the initial purpose of drugs is to cure illnesses. However, if used in excess these drugs can work as psychedelics or hallucinogenic substances, in which case I would say the substance becomes a drug in the sense that it alters the mind. I think the grades of consumption of this effect can be strictly defined; recreational is on occasion, Habitual would be if one ‘only takes drugs during weekends’, and abusive is closely linked to addiction where one is dependant on the substance. I think the boundaries between these different grades of drug consumption are very thin.

In regards to the examples given I would say that it’s all about what function art should serve. The 20th century artists all worked with their own perception of a subjective reality, whereas Michelangelo was an artist of science and rationality. His works evolved around mathematics and anatomy. I would say there is less room for drug use in his process of working then there was for Van Gogh who was seeking to give form to his subjective reality.

As an artist I think you mirror the world around you and reflect this upon the world within you. I think this can be done equally well by means of observing the world around you soberly, and through exploring the world within you, with or without drugs. It’s neither necessary nor obsolete.

Esthetically drugs can obviously have an influence on the way a work of art can turn out. In that regard there might be a difference as drug induced hallucinations can have an effect on a painting that otherwise might not have occurred. But making art is also a cognitive process that would be (partly) disabled when one is under influence of drugs.

Jason Levesque

Every drug compound is different, it’s very difficult to talk about drugs in terms of absolutes. Any broad statement is going to be met with dozens of examples to the contrary. I’ll do my best here.