Swaraj: self governance, or independence.

Art.

Where would we be without it. Art connects us in a primal way. Sounds, images, words and movement that allow us to resonate with each other, to understand each other when simple language fails us.

Without art you can't have political revolution, economic advancements or technological ideation and adoption.

Yet it has never been easy being an artist in India.

The first hurdle almost all artists face is disapproval in our immediate circles. Despite how much we love art, the general consensus has often been that a career in the arts is a bad decision. “There is no money to make. Art has no tangible value, why would anyone buy it? Get a real job. Work for a bank.”

A well meant, heavy handed pessimism, that grew into an accepted common knowledge.

But good luck telling an artist not to do something.

I remember as a child, I was very curious about music from around the world. I'd always been a bit of a hipster at heart and so found no attraction towards the dominance of ‘Bollywood Music.’ I always wanted to discover something new. I'd walk into a store to buy a CD. What frustrated me was that out of every 10 CDs, 7 were for Bollywood films, and 1 each for regional, religious, and international major label music. Some music business executive somewhere had decided what music got made and sold, in Mumbai, based on sales numbers. Reasonable for a businessman, but it did have a stifling domino effect on culture.

Then there was the internet.

Napster had lit a fuse that would have incredible ripple effects. The Pirate Bay replaced the physical store.

Suddenly we had access to everything from two engineering students in India singing about not being able to get their hands on cigarettes, to the goddamn Strokes (who the executive had thought unworthy of sales and marketing in India.)

Exposure to pockets of the world, global and local had begun. Power was placed in the hands of the listeners.

But it was far from perfect, the economics were disrupted, art started to lose value rapidly as we'd mastered a way to make and infinitely distribute perfect copies. This set in motion the rapid devaluation of art towards user generated content.

The Pirate Bay’s user experience wasn't pleasurable and we were due for an evolution before the economics collapsed. iTunes was making moves but outside the borders of India. For me, an independent artist, the real opportunity arrived with Facebook, and then Spotify's relatively late entry into the country. It took so many of us a while to realise how freeing social media was. Before, it used to be difficult to promote niche music, to build community, to get the word out.

Facebook and the like opened the gates of communication, that were heavily controlled by mainstream media outlets. In my opinion, this one move was pivotal to the rapid growth of the creator economy in India. An opportunity to learn, make and share ‘without needing permission.’ (not entirely, but let’s go with it.)

This was a significant nudge towards not having to play mainstream industry games, to make a living as a creator.

I've always felt the two most important people in the music business have been the fans and their artists.

Yet for as long as I can remember fans have been reduced to numbers and sales. They’ve been reduced to attention metrics and treated as passive consumers. Artists have often been treated as labor, paid in exposure and subjected to "trickle down economics." The middlemen, many of whom entered the business to help artists, find themselves trapped by business models that position them as gatekeepers and not facilitators.

Social media brought with it a promise of independence, and it did empower and create a strong creator economy but make no mistake, it simply shoved aside existing gatekeepers to become the biggest gatekeeper in the ecosystem.

Independent creators are paid in exposure - likes and follows. They are positioned as conduits for gathering data and attention, which in turn is monetized by centralized companies.

Do the artists see a financial upside? No.

Are the fans treated as patrons and collaborators in the growth of an idea? No.

Fans are often treated as product and assets.

Today is not very different from the time when the label executive determined what kind of music would be successful. Today, it is the social media giants who shape our palettes through algorithms, forcing many artists to behave and create in ways that benefit their bottom line. This leads to the watering down of ideas and homogenized behavior, through attention and exposure gates. A high and frequent quantity of user generated content is expected, for artists and fans to reap the benefits of the modern internet. We need to play within the walled gardens of centralized companies. We live in echo chambers for the profit of a few.

This breaks my heart in ways I cannot describe.

There was a moment.

A moment of rebellion and empowerment when Napster lit its fuse. It was too early. It was clumsy. It was chaotic. But it shone a light on a possibility.

A possibility that has been dreamt of since the early days of the internet. The possibility of peer to peer - you to me and me to you without anyone in the middle.

The original dream of the internet.

As we live today, exhausted by the demands to create endless Tiktok videos and having to pretend to be shocked and surprised on a Youtube thumbnail, a technology is being built that can evolve the internet and create a fair balance between all stakeholders in the arts ecosystem.

It is dreaded, derided and misunderstood. Yet there is a global borderless effort unlike one we've ever seen to build it. It's being built by technologists, artists and ideologists.

It is important for us, the fans, the modern Medicis, the patrons of innovation, to pay attention to it. It is called web3. This is the technology that could enable Swaraj.

At the Swaraj Projekt, we, a collection of artists, technologists, and patrons have decided to help build for it. From India, for the world.

Over the coming months we will share what we are building, and welcome you to help us build it.

Author: Rishi Bradoo, Creative Instigator for the Swaraj Projekt

Swaraj: self governance, or independence.

Art.

Where would we be without it. Art connects us in a primal way. Sounds, images, words and movement that allow us to resonate with each other, to understand each other when simple language fails us.

Without art you can't have political revolution, economic advancements or technological ideation and adoption.

Yet it has never been easy being an artist in India.

The first hurdle almost all artists face is disapproval in our immediate circles. Despite how much we love art, the general consensus has often been that a career in the arts is a bad decision. “There is no money to make. Art has no tangible value, why would anyone buy it? Get a real job. Work for a bank.”

A well meant, heavy handed pessimism, that grew into an accepted common knowledge.

But good luck telling an artist not to do something.

I remember as a child, I was very curious about music from around the world. I'd always been a bit of a hipster at heart and so found no attraction towards the dominance of ‘Bollywood Music.’ I always wanted to discover something new. I'd walk into a store to buy a CD. What frustrated me was that out of every 10 CDs, 7 were for Bollywood films, and 1 each for regional, religious, and international major label music. Some music business executive somewhere had decided what music got made and sold, in Mumbai, based on sales numbers. Reasonable for a businessman, but it did have a stifling domino effect on culture.

Then there was the internet.

Napster had lit a fuse that would have incredible ripple effects. The Pirate Bay replaced the physical store.

Suddenly we had access to everything from two engineering students in India singing about not being able to get their hands on cigarettes, to the goddamn Strokes (who the executive had thought unworthy of sales and marketing in India.)

Exposure to pockets of the world, global and local had begun. Power was placed in the hands of the listeners.

But it was far from perfect, the economics were disrupted, art started to lose value rapidly as we'd mastered a way to make and infinitely distribute perfect copies. This set in motion the rapid devaluation of art towards user generated content.

The Pirate Bay’s user experience wasn't pleasurable and we were due for an evolution before the economics collapsed. iTunes was making moves but outside the borders of India. For me, an independent artist, the real opportunity arrived with Facebook, and then Spotify's relatively late entry into the country. It took so many of us a while to realise how freeing social media was. Before, it used to be difficult to promote niche music, to build community, to get the word out.

Facebook and the like opened the gates of communication, that were heavily controlled by mainstream media outlets. In my opinion, this one move was pivotal to the rapid growth of the creator economy in India. An opportunity to learn, make and share ‘without needing permission.’ (not entirely, but let’s go with it.)

This was a significant nudge towards not having to play mainstream industry games, to make a living as a creator.

I've always felt the two most important people in the music business have been the fans and their artists.

Yet for as long as I can remember fans have been reduced to numbers and sales. They’ve been reduced to attention metrics and treated as passive consumers. Artists have often been treated as labor, paid in exposure and subjected to "trickle down economics." The middlemen, many of whom entered the business to help artists, find themselves trapped by business models that position them as gatekeepers and not facilitators.

Social media brought with it a promise of independence, and it did empower and create a strong creator economy but make no mistake, it simply shoved aside existing gatekeepers to become the biggest gatekeeper in the ecosystem.

Independent creators are paid in exposure - likes and follows. They are positioned as conduits for gathering data and attention, which in turn is monetized by centralized companies.

Do the artists see a financial upside? No.

Are the fans treated as patrons and collaborators in the growth of an idea? No.

Fans are often treated as product and assets.

Today is not very different from the time when the label executive determined what kind of music would be successful. Today, it is the social media giants who shape our palettes through algorithms, forcing many artists to behave and create in ways that benefit their bottom line. This leads to the watering down of ideas and homogenized behavior, through attention and exposure gates. A high and frequent quantity of user generated content is expected, for artists and fans to reap the benefits of the modern internet. We need to play within the walled gardens of centralized companies. We live in echo chambers for the profit of a few.

This breaks my heart in ways I cannot describe.

There was a moment.

A moment of rebellion and empowerment when Napster lit its fuse. It was too early. It was clumsy. It was chaotic. But it shone a light on a possibility.

A possibility that has been dreamt of since the early days of the internet. The possibility of peer to peer - you to me and me to you without anyone in the middle.

The original dream of the internet.

As we live today, exhausted by the demands to create endless Tiktok videos and having to pretend to be shocked and surprised on a Youtube thumbnail, a technology is being built that can evolve the internet and create a fair balance between all stakeholders in the arts ecosystem.

It is dreaded, derided and misunderstood. Yet there is a global borderless effort unlike one we've ever seen to build it. It's being built by technologists, artists and ideologists.

It is important for us, the fans, the modern Medicis, the patrons of innovation, to pay attention to it. It is called web3. This is the technology that could enable Swaraj.

At the Swaraj Projekt, we, a collection of artists, technologists, and patrons have decided to help build for it. From India, for the world.

Over the coming months we will share what we are building, and welcome you to help us build it.

Author: Rishi Bradoo, Creative Instigator for the Swaraj Projekt