Chime In Why Experimental Art Is More Important Than Ever Stories You May Like From Iraq to Bangladesh, ‘Vlogger’ Hotelie Goes Off the Beaten Track A Trivia Tribute to Coach Schafer Move Over, R2-D2: Here Come the Trash Robots When we focus on making our work marketable, it’s no longer the creative endeavor that our society so desperately needs “Chime In” comprises brief first-person essays by Cornellians. Do you have a topic in mind? Email us at cornellians@cornell.edu! By Jesi Bender Buell ’07 As an artist, one thing I’ve learned over the years is that people, in general, hate the word “experimental.” They think it’s pretentious, lazy, or just weird for the sake of being weird. Most tell me that it doesn’t mean anything. The common rejoinder: “Isn’t all art experimental?” Well, no, I don’t think so. All art isn’t experimental, especially in the world of writing. Any person who has taken a creative writing class will tell you that students are given a formula—it can look like a triangle or like Mad Libs, but it gives you what your story needs to be “good” (which really means “marketable”). Follow this trajectory; add in these elements. Writers are told that readers expect these things, and you must fulfill those expectations if you want engagement. As an English major, I was inspired by Cornell authors like Thomas Pynchon ’59, Toni Morrison, MA ’55, Kurt Vonnegut ’44, and professors Molly Hite and Vladimir Nabokov—all of whom challenged the literary status quo. As an English major, I was inspired by Cornell authors like Thomas Pynchon ’59, Toni Morrison, MA ’55, Kurt Vonnegut ’44—all of whom challenged the literary status quo. I had the good fortune to take several creative writing courses as an undergraduate, including an advanced course with Helena María Viramontes. My Cornell experience was informed by teaching that encouraged generative and exploratory writing, rather than the strict adherence to a set of rules. That freedom—to explore, to experiment, to be wrong or boring or just bad—was enormously valuable, and instilled in me the belief that when we rely so heavily on these rules, writing no longer exists as an art form. One of the author's artworks, titled Smog. (And Cornell continues to inspire new literary art—not only through its MFA programs in writing and poetry, but through offerings like the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning’s Master of Fine Arts in Image Text, which both teaches and brings avant-garde artists to Ithaca.) Stories You May Like From Iraq to Bangladesh, ‘Vlogger’ Hotelie Goes Off the Beaten Track A Trivia Tribute to Coach Schafer When we challenge convention—whether or not the result is ultimately successful—we are thinking. And with our expressions, we are contributing to public thought. The artist asks people to meet them at some new kind of understanding. If you bind that to a formula or paradigm, you’ll produce a public that is unable to derive meaning from anything outside their experience—one that is unable to think. When we challenge convention—whether or not the result is ultimately successful—we are thinking. And with our expressions, we are contributing to public thought. But experimental literature is all around us, and it is a thriving, vital, and abundant community—existing not just for its own sake, but to express precise thoughts or experiences. In my latest novel, Child of Light, for example, I was interested in how to tell stories in ways that felt new and more organic. For me, this often manifests in playing with the literary form. Child of Light is experimental historical fiction set in 1890s Utica that tells the story of a young girl as she tries to understand her world through the interests of her parents: Spiritualism for Mama, electrical engineering for Papa. When the reader encounters the story of how the mother and father came together, I start the text as two columns telling two separate stories. As they meet, the columns alternate line by line and start to “braid” together until they form one passage. In a world where so much art is produced through established IP, it is critical that we don’t lose newness—because that is where we learn and grow. Even if we don’t like an artist’s expression, at the very least I hope we can appreciate their attempt to say something original. And in a world increasingly controlled by “groupthink,” it is ever more important that we foster new ways of knowing, and embrace our living tongues to birth new language. Jesi Bender Buell ’07 is an artist and author from Upstate New York who currently works at the Cornell University Library. In addition to the upcoming novel Child of Light, her publications include the poetry collection Dangerous Women and the experimental play Kinderkrankenhaus. Published June 18, 2025 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Campus & Beyond The Scoop on Cornell Dairy Treats Storytime with Corey What’s the Most Iconic Cornell Tradition? Vote in the Final Four! Alumni Recent Grad Saddles Up as 2024’s Miss Rodeo America