Hi Sven,
Your article is very interesting and puts a highlight on many things I've been noticing too since the end of the previous decade.
I think Covid-19 made a lot of lightpainters think about what really matters in their life and they just gave up lightpainting to focus on other things more important to them. But we were in a weird situation since 2018, when we were hundreds to be tired of Sergey's decisions for LPWA, we left it to create...two different entities managed by people who were foes. Maybe random lightpainters got confused and tired of this nonsense rivalry. LP is supposed to be fun but, at one point, it wasn't that funny when people started to denigrate each others.
We must admit that we had great times in lightpainting with huge communities, great meet-ups, nice collective exhibitions... but it didn't came from nowhere and guys who were running the most active groups had to face a lot of criticism and a lack of support.
And we failed into developing our community here. The project was to make hundred of lightpainters migrate from centralized "social" medias to Hive and generate money to fund documentaries, events...but complexity of a blockchain-based app, defiance to cryptocurrency and lazyness I guess made our dream come to...a sweet memory from the past.
The LP community vanished here in France (it was the country with the more lightpainters before 2018) but the spanish one is still strong and very very active. I don't know exactly why but our mates in Spain kept the faith and LP is really alive there as they organize congresses and a lot of stuff.
My two cents.
Thank you for your detailed comment.Hi @dawnoner,
I deliberately did not describe the consequences of the measures against the "pandemic". On the one hand, that would go beyond the scope and would not be particularly helpful. The deep psychological wounds inflicted on many people by social distancing, curfews, travel restrictions, etc. have not healed to this day and are still robbing them of their zest for life and creativity.
I have met most Light Painters as intelligent, creative people with a free spirit. They long for a community of like-minded people with lively, friendly, respectful dialogue. I don't think they need or want a leader and a rigid group with rules imposed from outside. At the end of the day, that doesn't work either, as the LPWA example shows. If the owner no longer earns enough money or doesn't feel like it, the community is simply shut down.
HIVE would be exactly the right place for a lively light painting community. Even the person with the fattest wallet here can't delete my account or censor what I write when I criticise or empower myself to have my own, different view of things. I don't need a group with a leader here. I would be happy if more light painters would show their pictures here and there would be a lively exchange. And HIVE already has everything we need for this. There is no need for any supervision or even regimentation by Sergei, or whatever the new leader is called. The main problem is that many people are put off. No censorship, no company with big profits and then you pay with cryptocurrency. For many, this sounds like the darkest hole in the underworld. What's more, for most people, getting started with HIVE is likely to involve a great deal of uncertainty and effort. Many were frustrated and then disappeared again because they didn't immediately get the same attention as on Instagram or Facebook. I have no idea how to motivate more light painters to showcase their art here, other than offering to help anyone get started.
Let's hope for better times.
YEP