Yeah It's Art, What The Hell Of It?

Late last week, I sat in my living room writing an article on my MacBook Pro on the evolving face of contemporary art, while downloading James Joyce’s Dubliners on my Ipad and listening to music on my $200 Bose stereo system. My roommate, who desired anonymity in accordance to a recent cocoa plant excursion, entered our living room with the ivory fruits of her journeys and a couple other new possessions amounting to a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, and a quill to match the small jar full of ink she had bought just days before. It was a sign from the patron saint of irony, as I thought, “Milton’s paradise is lost indeed.” The fact is that art has changed drastically from the days of Milton, Joyce, and even Vonnegut. So the question stands, are these developments detrimental? Have we established such a lack of confinement of expression through these, our Jetson-esque technological assets, that our expression is in turn made languid in depth and substance? Often, the answers of such inquiry are subject to mutation via generational gaps. The fact is that we, the willing and almost able youth, see these developments as integral to the evolution of contemporary art as a whole – a post-post modernist agenda of sorts. The argument usually takes place between my beloved Jon Stewart subscribing Gen Y, and the surviving cornerstones of the ever impressive twentieth century art scene, lighting red candles on the mantles of giant radios in lieu of Catholic saints, to call back that “fire side chatting” voice. With that in mind, let us navigate the two sides of this argument point to point before casting it to the fire the in the court of public opinion.

Most obviously, the technological development that has had the greatest influence in contemporary art has been the internet. This PC-charged, MacBook Pro world has mutated the once organic chemistry of the creative process. Now that information is available at the click of a “mouse,” whatever the damn thing is, people can perform the tasks of informed judgment, criticism, and learning with the ease and clarity once afforded by a renaissance brush stroke. Sharing artistic history, influence, ideas and developments are of highest priority in the photoshopping sophistication of contemporary artistic culture. But is it effective?

Many argue that the abundance of information flowing through the G.W. entitled “Internets” lead many to assume the false identities of articulate, well read art critics. The fact of the matter is, to the many supporters of said argument, that reading several articles and memorizing famous names of works and artists who contributed in large to artistic movements does not constitute an art expert. But is art a medium dictated by experts and critics exclusively? Was not Duchamp the son of a notary? The fact is that many of the celebrated artists of the last century have buried the ballast of their fame in the grounds, outlying the establishment. So does expertise make good art? Obviously, Duchamp could paint in the classicist style with the best of them, and thus one may argue that one cannot break the rules one does not know. But art is more than rules and the lack thereof. Art is an exercise in cognition, expression, and communication. One of which, the MacBook generation, surely knows a hell of a whole lot more about than any “Great Generation” artist may hope to learn.

Artistic rendering of cognition, expression, and communication in this technological heyday is not ill-afforded, or so it may be argued. People in large, with the grand schemes of information at their near and present disposal, may educate themselves on a level unseen by history. This grand education, in turn, realizes a broad cognition of human and universal conditions. It is in the expression of said cognitions, brought forth by these extensive systematic means of communication, that art may flourish; and it damn sure doesn’t hurt to have a means in which art may be made further aesthetically stunning. This is the stem of the pro-technological artistic movement which uses the many previously mentioned assets as well as developments to the tune of 3D film, digital photography, and digital sound engineering to bring forth tools to employ at the whim of any artist. While one can see the obvious detriments of said technologies, even Jay-Z would agree “Auto-tune” has overstayed its welcome. These are precious assets to the artistic community that can amount to just as much progressive works, in a similar fashion as the advent of canned paint amounted to in the realms of Pollock’s abstract expressionism.

Whether one stands firm against the technological developments, or employs them intelligently and creatively in one’s own work, it is impossible to disagree with the idea that the world’s means and artistic manifestations are changing. But not all change is bad. As a recent cell phone ad campaign on the train pronounced: “Some change is 4G.”