The Future of Art in a Digital World (part 1)

Predicting a future for Art is difficult because the meaning of Art itself depends on ones personal definition of it.

These are some of the other things going on right now…
- Our world is facing a climate crisis.
- Our world will use up all of it’s know resources in 150 years.
- Monks are being tortured
- Humans are starved, diseased and die terrible deaths
- Much of the world in at war.
- Digitization has firmly embedded itself in our culture.

First of all, I believe that we should look at Art as 2 separate complex entities. The 1st one will be called Art and the 2nd one will be called Fine Art.

Art is a very large fluid mental body of interconnections which would encompass our thoughts, feelings, and the way we simply behave and are. Nature, science, the miracle of life and being, are all Art in this sense. Art is an attitude that can create change. Art is optimism. It’s the creative spark that causes anyone to do anything. Sometimes I know that our language has limits when sharing complex ideas. This is where Art and Fine Art can come together. Art is one of those words that must stand in and represent far more than it should. Basically, Art stands for everything that is good.

Fine Art is that thing you learn about in Art History. It thrives in urban centers during prosperous economic times. It has many different periods, mediums and styles. It changes slowly over time. We only hear what we’re supposed to. You know…“history is written by the victorious” or something to that effect. Fine Art has generally been controlled by elitists and the wealthy, which may usually, but not necessarily, mean that inequality is/was present. Fine Art is truly a business which must survive amongst all of the others. Fine Art is in our city. It’s not close to the degree of Paris or New York but it is here. And yes, we have extremely wealthy residence and many homeless poor people. Fine Art should actually be much stronger in city if it were directly relational to the alarming range of personal wealth apparent here. I love Fine Art for many reasons but something does seem to be wrong with some of our historical values. Fine Art moves so slowly that an artist is more likely to get popular after they die.

So how do we integrate more Art into Fine Art?

How can we justify taking part in Fine Art?

Digital Fine Art is not a “cultural distraction” like lots of the media we see. It can be difficult, especially for experts, to determine what can be let through the Fine Art gates. It always depends on who is looking at the situation. I definitely believe that Fine Art should open up it’s focus. People are being raised around computers and will not fear them the way that someone might today.

Digital technology will get deeply involed with Art, as it has with culture.
But things we be different…

The wonders of computation will be used in more thoughtful ways. The purpose or direction of technology is reassessed. Science and technology, under the influence of artists, visionaries, and the collective consciousness of humanity, will get maximized to it's full potential. Things will be invented on a daily basis because everybody is experimenting with technology in new creative ways.

Digital Revolution! ???
- It helps us towards utopia or at least saves us from extinction
- Major advancement in areas like; resources, new understanding of environment/universe, new medical, new jobs, new global sharing systems, and new values (w/Art & Fine Art together).

Art and Culture are so intertwined that they often appear to be one. Like Ying-Yang or partners who require each other to function, possibly like the two halves of our brains?

Image displays the Digital influence on Art and Culture.


This is a link to my short Flash animation of the same concept.

(Please note that for the purpose of clarity more [-] values have been put into the Culture entity and [+] ones have gone into the Art entity. This is not to say that all Cultural values are bad and all Art values good. However, I feel that, historically in our world, the Bad Cultural values have generally ruled over the Good ones, and also the fact that humans are truly oblivious to what is really going on.)

I don’t know if Fine Art will ever go away?

Art, as I have defined it, is something eternal. Fine Art is not.

Fine Art will surely change form and nature as culture changes.

This is a link to my very Young Hae-Chang Heavy Industries style short Flash animation which begins to illustrate may thoughts on this subject.


end part 1