Module 4, initial questions & responses…

17 Comments

1. I found Bill Ivey and Steven Tepper’s article “Cultural Renaissance or Cultural Divide” to be very interesting. In it, Ivey and Tepper argue that the way current and future generations experience arts and culture is dependent on their socio-economic status. People with time, money, and education will get to participate in the cultural renaissance that accompanies increased cultural choice resulting from technological advances. People without those valuable resources, on the other hand, will consume mass-produced culture selected by a small number of mega-corporations. As arts administrators, our role is to ensure that the widest possible segment of the population has access to the products of this “cultural renaissance” and are afforded the opportunities to create their own art.

   That notion of increased access ties back around to ideas of community art and the cultural commons which were presented by Sterns and Seifert and by Lewis Hyde. In order to ensure that the future of art is the one presented by the “cultural optimists” in the Ivey and Tepper article, arts administrators and public policy makers need to create the conditions in which more people can participate in and create art. Our actions will determine what the future of arts and culture looks like. Creating community art which engages typically underserved or marginalized populations is one means of achieving the goal of an engaged public. A prerequisite in achieving this goal is the reexamining of copyright laws which limit people’s ability to participate in creating culture, an argument put forth by Lawrence Lessic and Lewis Hyde.

   In my vision of the future of arts and culture, transmedia resources serve as a potential equalizer, but only if more individuals are given means to those resources. An arts culture heavily dependent on the use of technology has the potential to exclude people without access to the essential technologies. While technology can allow people to participate with and engage in art work in a deeper and more meaningful way, it is important that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in the creation of a new cultural landscape.

2. When I think about the future of art in our society, I see a model similar to the one we are living in right now, where both popular and higher art exist. Even though the digital age has allowed the birth of the PRO-AM, software and production materials are easily and cheaply obtained, and anyone can create and remix their own material, barriers like education and class will continue to create the divide between the fine arts and popular culture. Those who are educated about the arts and identify its value in their lives will continue to seek it out and support it, while those who have not been exposed will not. Pop music will continue to produce transparent and vapid media because the market for these products will always have an audience. Only those individuals that seek high and low for a more quality experience, and those who share and participate in these findings with their peers, will sustain the finer arts. The cream will always rise to the top (speaking of artists/art worlds), even if that vat is much larger and evermore expansive than before. Artists will continue to find ways to create and promote their work in the public eye, and for them, technology will only help them in their endeavors.

   I especially like the comparison that Ivey and Tepper gave when talking about the disappearance of storytelling and cultural creation and in its place, mass media companies telling us what is professional and worth turning our attention to. Disguised in the vehicle of the time (radio and records among others), these mediums allowed a more personal experience in the home but sacrificed the local artist and storyteller for the celebrity on the T.V. and eventually the Internet. Media giants will continue to produce their wares, but I believe that we are on the verge of cycling back to localized arts creation and consumption in response to the overload of possibilities offered to us everyday online and in the marketplace. This can be seen in the plethora of independent record labels, numerous nonprofit arts organizations in every town throughout the U.S., and particularly within the resurrection in American Roots music.

   Thinking about McClure’s article Invisible Environment and how youth today “want roles, not goals” in their daily interaction aligns perfectly with Richard Florida’s “creative class”, where “they don’t want the arts, they want the arts experience” (pg. 6). Perhaps it is easier to label consumers today as passive, but I think that young people today look for a way to specifically and methodically interact with their culture, to create their own realities, and respond to those visual worlds with great efficiency and meaningful input. It, like the vat described above, is now just a much larger and seemingly endless wasteland of options. Culture cannot be defined only by its locality anymore, it exists wherever its members gather and participate.

3. To someone who dearly loves creating with real materials and visiting tangible created works and traveling to places where the internet can’t reach me– the future of art and culture in a technologically reliant United States “society”- (although that’s a vague, often misconstrued term), is a bleak one. It’s one where every child has an iPad but can’t find old textbooks in libraries. It’s one where libraries have been overtaken by computer labs and what art classes remain in K-12 education are digitalized. It’s a society where art education teaches art from only the last 50 years and what is understood of cultural artifacts from other countries is what is rendered on a digital screen, flattening out unique textures and rich history.
   Now, I may be a bit cynical when it comes to the future of art and culture in a technological world, especially for someone who spends probably 5-6 hours a day looking at a screen. What I listed above as the future of art and culture is already the present, I’m just not quite ready to admit that it continue this way. Now, let me be clear. I’m not trying to say that a life lived within screens, concrete city walls and imagined spaces is not a worthwhile one– as Speed Levitch might argue in “The Cruise”, there is life and connectivity in places people are often unable or unwilling to feel. He says, while giving a tour of New York City, “Central Park is a place to become one with nature… Anyone you see bicycling, rollerblading, jogging, they are not historically accurate. Anyone lounging in the sun, having a picnic or kissing, they are historically accurate. Ah, the sun, another great NYC landmark, above you on the left.” Manhattan almost dizzyingly encompasses Levitch in the film, similar to the feeling of looking upwards into the canopy of a rainforest. Society, despite rapid advancements in technology, is what you see in it. I have a hard time convincing myself of this sometimes.
   On another note, while it may seem that nothing is original, there is still so much that is misunderstood. Maybe it’s not creators we need, but rather explainers, diggers, researchers… the thing is, what these people find must be represented, and artists do a really good job representing things in a way that grabs hold of hearts and minds. It’s how they choose to represent things that matters, I think. This quote from Kirby Ferguson in his Ted Talk touches on this well. He says, “Our creativity comes from without, not from within. We are not self-made. We are dependent upon one another. Admitting this to ourselves isn’t an embrace of mediocrity. It is liberation from our misconceptions. It is an incentive to not expect so much from ourselves and simply begin.”
   Begin, though, to do what exactly? There is certainly a rise in amateur art making and uninvested art participation. In “Cultural Renaissance or Cultural Divide”, Bill Ivey quotes Henry Jenkins arguing that “amateur art is taking place in the shadow of giant media… there is an explosion of cultural choice made possible by new technologies and a mingling of high and popular art.” Jenkins refers to this a “revitalization of folk culture.” Now, I’m not sure what folk culture looks like, but I’m immediately drawn to the idea of folk music as years of front porch remixes of melody and lyrics. Ferguson, in his TedTalk, mentions Bob Dylan, one of the most recognizable folk artists of all time, as a borrower more than an original creator. While this is a somewhat disheartening fact, it’s not necessarily negative.
   Finally, Andrea Polli’s visiting artist lecture would be a great addition to the material this week. One of the questions she told the audience that she poses in her work is, “what social and cultural effects are there when defining the natural environment as information space? I’ll have to chew on this one a bit, but I wanted to throw it out there for others to grabble with.

4. – ” you didn’t study art?”
   – “No philosophy and psychology”
   – “how did you come into art?”
   – ” insanely late and never particularly ambitiously, I met these Viennese group of eight o nine, Gelatin and we started to work together…”

   This how Gabriel Von Loebell, known as artist to in world came into art. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSrEXjkHzPg) and this is the future of art. maybe years ago artists were a known class of society but the way art, technology and their combination are going is not to an very distinguished classically categorized ending, but to a blended mixture of life, technology, day by day life and idea. Before the process of having an idea and then realization of it in the real world needed time, more time better, but now, with this technology at hand, art creation is in a second, from a good picture of a cell phone to graffiti drawn in an hour. Future art is not a beautiful tableau on the wall, to Damien Hirst, is the profile cut of two people having sex (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sabzn_O7Ig), to Olafur Elliasson is having a museum as big as a city (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZfagD2ddY).

   For sure, future art fills the gap between ages and experience and it will full fill the gap of differences from racial differences to cultural differences. it will concentrate human again. In modern art “tools” decide about the art, they decide how a painting should be and artist likes that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlEMQBoFiYo). As a conclusion I can say that while the art is as it was, the look on it will much different and thus the out come will be different to audience.

5. Stern and Seifert suggest that a paradigm shift in social policy—one that changes our focus from “individual genius” and its associated social dislocations towards creative collaboration and an interdependent cultural economy—“has the potential to move the 21st century toward shared prosperity and social integration” (1). They underscore the social costs of the current paradigm, “’winner-take-all’ labor markets” and the diminishing social yields of cultural production (3-4). Furthermore, Stern and Seifert point to the link between cultural engagement and collective efficacy (4). They propose a “neighborhood- based creative economy as a framework for strengthening the social and spatial networks of creativity from the bottom-up” (6). They build off of a “model of the community cultural sector as an ecosystem” by demonstrating that “the capacities and impacts of the sector as a whole are greater than the sum of its parts” and show the ways in which other key cultural agents contribute to this ecosystem and suggesting that “a social inclusion strategy would support urban neighborhood-based creative businesses and sole proprietors—particularly those with the potential to become “‘natural’ cultural districts” (6-10). Just as Stern and Seifert advocate for an interdependent and distributed model of cultural production and social citizenship, Lewis Hyde’s exploration of cultural commons unpacks the intentional misperceptions about cultural production in American history, advocating for improved “visibility and standing” of our cultural commons. In essence, Hyde’s vision of the future of cultural institutions and cultural community is one that recognizes and further invests in the social “assets, be they environ-mental technological or artistic.” Recognizing the increasing influence of the transmedia environment, it is not unreasonable to assume that cultural attitudes favoring collaborative agency, social ownership and participatory creation will advance the vision laid forth by Hyde, Stern and Seifert. While detractors of emergent media forms as sources of information and modes of communication, like Scott Sampson, suggest that the Internet marks “the extinction of experience, the loss of intimate experience with the natural world,” or claim that “any positive outcome will involve us turning off the screens and spending significant time outside interacting with the real world, in particular the nonhuman world,” they ignore the equalizing force that the Internet brings to bear on cultural production. While the products of Internet cultural production are not material, they are—for the most part—public art in ways that material public art can rarely be. Participants in online cultural practices can engage with, contend, revisit, revise and restore cultural products informally and without intervention. Whereas institutions have previously been able to support and limit access to cultural production, the former becomes far easier than the latter in the digital sphere.

6. Expanding on the idea of transmedia as a vessel for collaborative thought, this age of technology will expand, and with it, the tools to reach more people and public through transmedia; the two are inextricably linked. I also keep thinking of interactive art, of art that is projected and interfacing with the public, like something straight out of a sci-fi flick. The range will be broader, and the scope of subjects greater, but I think there will always be trends that we can see today: traditional media being used, digital art, photography, installation work, performance, etc.

   The diigo article about a new controversial project talking about producing an algorithm that predicts art is totally about this idea of what art may be in the future! And really interesting to think about because it seems so skeptical, yet you have to keep reading. Topics that the article brought up, more precisely, how the algorithm’s answer involves three elements, the name, materials, and instructions for the materials, reminded me of surrealism. Putting several ideas together to form one idea, or to limit the subject matter to force art from the debris could be a way to mix things up a bit. Maybe a more pronounced statement may be to involve multiple artists and do it in front of people or the public for a show and see what happens then. Maybe involve some of the audience members or something. I think the reality is that social media has forced artists to pick up their game. The instant view we have of the world is at our fingertips and the only way to stay current is to know it and learn from it. Know the current trends and how people are getting their art; try to understand how art is being used everyday. The future of art is all about self-expression, finding a way in society that already has it all. Lund says, “’Credibility’” and a ‘large body of work’ are more crucial to an artist’s career than a one-off success,” and “‘hard to generate’ by way of a finicky algorithm.” We already knew that, but Lund makes a good point, that artists should make art the way that appeals to them, grow the work, and use transmedia as the display lens.

   On a side note form by brain, I do think that today’s world can be interpreted as jumbled, strewn with all kinds of design and typefaces and colors competing for our attention. While I love that art can be so multidimensional, part of me yearns for simplicity. Not so much sexuality in ads, not so much exploitation of different cultures. But maybe leave the ambiguity, just something that speaks for itself on a clean white page. The future may lie along this idea of instead of straying form “guidelines” and thinking “outside the box”, maybe going back in the box, and coloring in the lines, making a statement that way instead of being a rebel with a cause.

7. When I think about how art will change and evolve in the future, I draw a blank. It’s difficult to look that far into the future when considering something as organic as art; it’s something that is constantly changing, and it doesn’t just go in one direction. But, when considering what art will mean, that’s a whole different story. In the past hundred years, there have been huge developments in how art is experienced by everyday people. In “Cultural Renaissance or Cultural Divide?” Ivey and Tepper discuss the ways in which art has become more accessible to people. We can experience art whenever we want to just by looking it up on the internet, owning CDs, and other materials. We don’t have to wait for a performance to feel creative. Likewise, the creation of art has become more accessible. No longer do people have to go to art school, live privileged lives, or be sponsored in order to create something. The Internet has helped “amateurs” share their creation and has provided new means of participation in the arts.

   Speaking of the internet, the article about whether the Internet changing the way we think was interesting. I enjoyed reading the varied responses and found myself questioning my answer to the question. It’s difficult for me to remember a time without access to the Internet. I remember not having it at home for a while, but we have used it in classrooms since either second or third grade. I specifically remember the kid’s version of Ask Jeeves. So is it changing the way I think? Probably, but I don’t notice it. It’s the same as my theory on the evolution of art—it’s constantly changing, so I don’t recognize any large changes in my day to day life. I think I process information more quickly than I would without the Internet; and that seems like a universal aspect of how it changes the way we interpret information. Just because I process something, that doesn’t mean I delve into the actual source material. It’s a shallow way to access knowledge, but it has the advantage of providing more information if need be.

8. In “From Creative Economy to Creative Society,” Stern and Seifert discuss the impact of community clusters and networks of resources in ameliorating social and economic inequalities. In particular, the results from the Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) indicates a correlation between high levels of cultural participation with low levels of truancy among children in low-income neighborhoods. I think this is one of the future directions of art and culture in society – art as it connects with education and curriculum development. As formal educational systems continue to cut funding for arts-based programming, the demand for validating the importance of the arts – whether through in or outside of school activities – is imperative, especially in relation to promoting education and academic achievement.

   Apart from arts and education, I think the future of arts and culture is expanding the utility of community arts programming to address the current inadequacies of social interactions. In “The Innovation of Loneliness,” Cohen describes, through video, the development of loneliness through a westernized, individualistic construct combined with the fear of being absent or unconnected in social media (http://elitedaily.com/news/world/this-video-will-have-you-completely-rethink-how-you-conduct-yourself-online-and-in-person-video/). Today, according to Cohen, as social media interactions consume individuals’ daily lives in the idea that “we never have to be alone,” ironically, the feeling of loneliness ensues. This concept, as described by Cohen, highlights the lack of “intimacy” and “quality” of relationships that are nonexistent through the use of social media. In order to remedy this situation, I think the future of arts and culture provides authentic opportunities, through face-to-face interactions and collaborations, to develop meaningful relationships and reduce relentless feelings of loneliness.

9. I see the future of art and society as one that is global in nature, with art, culture, and society being used as tools to facilitate a peaceful resolution to conflicts. We are a war weary public, as has been evident with the global community’s response to bombing Syria this past summer, and I think this weariness will have lasting effects. As efforts such as those already explored in Susan Lacy’s article, and the realization of the adverse effects of the creative economy set in as discussed by Stern and Seifert, there will be more local efforts to preserve and nourish culture. What I think will happen before this is that many neighborhoods will be continue to be completely reinvented and their cultures redefined, with those that existed before gentrification and redevelopment being relocated or left in history. Sooner or later, public policy will have to address the economic disparity that has been created at the local and national levels, here and abroad. Part of this shift in policy will have to occur at the international level, and I think UNESCO will eventually be a leading partner through their effort to strengthen communities at all levels through programs under their theme of Cultural Creativity (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/creativity/). Culture can be used to lessen entrenchment between countries and alliances just as it can be used to lessen entrenchment between neighborhoods in urban environments. The more people understand each other, the more they will live in harmony because understanding of other cultures humanizes people, and therefore, it is less appealing to harm them or participate in conflict against them. Michael Kaiser, President of the Kennedy Center, advocates cultural diplomacy as a means of furthering and betting foreign relations. It can also improve domestic relations, and the more New Genre Public Art is utilized at the local level, the more it will enable people to be engaged as constructive global citizens.

   Transmedia will help educate people and empower them. They will feel they have a voice, and even if they do not feel they belong in their immediate surroundings, they can find a community through transmedia that will foster growth and development (hopefully for the better – this is a sunshine take on the future). Transmedia is like free psycho-therapy in this way. It can have its negative effects, like those discussed in this NPR article about Facebook (http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/16/223052837/whether-facebook-makes-you-lonely-depends-on-how-you-use-it), but it can be used to further cultural and artistic outreach. At the end of the day, people are people, and we are social creatures. A sense of place and belonging is what matters the most, and art, culture, and society is about belonging and strengthening the community because we are invested in it. Transmedia will work to strengthen this investment.

10. As time progresses, I observe our society takes a particular interest in creativity. What I mean by this is that we’re learning to appreciate the ability to think outside the box and the advantages that this might bring into the mix. Look at Stern’s and Seifert’s article for example. They have conducted studies that prove how positively being involved in the arts can affect our society. They explain how we’re entering an era in which economy and creativity go hand in hand. And, as artists, we should be excited. We should be exploring the myriad of possibilities of places where this progress will take us. We should think ahead of the curve and take economy to the next level ourselves.

    I imagine a future in which art will be a part of daily life. A future in which art refreshes and revitalizes the soul to each one just as food revitalizes the body. In this future art making and observing blends with other aspects of our regular lives. However, while I think society in general needs to start looking at the need for art with different eyes, I also think we, as artists, need to start looking at the rest of the world with different eyes. We need to adjust our perspective in order for our message to reach even further. Personally, I think this is where arts management plays a large role. I look at our profession as the creativity-meets-business world and I feel like this gives us an advantage towards reaching that point when artists will be able to support themselves without the help of some people that might not necessarily understand what we do. I see that this point might be a little harsh at times, but I think it is time for us artist to take a stand and be entrepreneurs and artists at the same time. It’s our time to make our own way.

    In terms of trans media, I think technology will continue to affect and transform our lifestyle just the way it’s done in the last years. We don’t buy newspapers anymore, we don’t have a land-line, some people don’t know how to address an envelope and I don’t know the schedule of my favorite TV shows because I always end up watching them online. Technology has transformed the way we communicate, read and even how we listen to music. The possibilities to come are absolutely incalculable.

11. The “Time in Place” article speaks to the power art holds in social change. We recently investigated projects from the Animating Democracy Initiative in my Community Arts Praxis course and our discussions around the impact of arts-based civic dialogue created an interesting framework for which to imagine the role of art in future societies. Using art installations/performances to engage the public is a growing practice as it creates a forum of conversation, inviting multiple perspectives. Think of the SLEEP protestors right here in Eugene; the homeless community is creating ownership of engagement by setting up sleep camps in front of the public eye. Arts-based civic dialogue/engagement brings societal issues such as identity, diversity, and control to the fore front and encourages individuals to make personal assessments about their involvement in community. ADI has created a formalized method for assessing the experiences of community arts participants; by documenting research and making recorded outcomes available to the public, the initiatives of everyone involved will shape the future of public arts programming. As the author Suzanne Lacy states, “what is clear is that the Ford Foundation and Americans for the Arts have, through ADI, greatly expanded new genre public art through advocacy, unification of the dis-course, communication with a broader public, and the development of an embedded art criticism” (Lacy, p.21). In the beginning of civilization, art was regarded as merely a pastime; now, however, contemporary art practices are thriving in a multimedia environment and everyday more people are being exposed to the visual interpretations presented by artists. As platforms for communication become more accessible to the public, so do the opportunities for voicing belief and concern.

    The Ivey and Tepper article presents an interesting argument about access to art and art-making for the authors suggest the intersection of technology and economic class is creating a cultural divide (Ivey & Tepper, p. 9). The article poses this question: Can America prosper if its citizens experience such different and unequal cultural lives? As I consider my reply, I think the answer depends on what your definition of “prosper” is. Is prosper characterized by financial growth, refined taste, or increased awareness and appreciation? Cultural prosperity, to me, paves the way for acceptance, diversity, and freedom of expression – all inherent themes within the American art world of today. The authors’ assertion that “our challenge today is to figure out a way to thicken [to increase the engagement of] our cultural life for all Americans” is intriguing, however, I do not think this must be a priority for arts leaders. Art is not for everyone, and that is alright – this helps create balance. There are art historians who offer criticism because they are well-educated on the subject matter at hand, and there are critics who openly voice skepticism about the value of art altogether; without the latter, arts professionals would have nothing to fight for. Ivey and Tepper proclaim there are individuals who lack the time, money and knowledge to effectively “navigate the cultural system” and as a result their “cultural choices [are] directed to limited options” (Ivey & Tepper, p. 9). This is a matter of not knowing what you have until it’s gone. Why would the “cultural underclass” feel like they were missing out on the opportunity to experience and create art if artistic culture never occupied a high precedence for them in the first place?

    As a graduate in the field of arts education, I was recently asked to complete a survey in order to help the Strategic Arts Alumni Project generate analysis on artistic careers (http://snaap.indiana.edu/snaapshot/). The SnaapShot 2012 survey results parallel the research findings presented in the Stern and Seifert article. Over 65,000 arts alumni provided input and in the survey section investigating “skills”, creativity is valued across the board as the most important component of professional work life. Companies value creativity in their employees because in many cases the ability to think creatively is what sets them apart from everyone else. New transmedia materials are inundating society on a daily basis. Blogs, vlogs, online survey providers, apps, QR codes, interactive art exhibits, video games, alternative ending books and movies…all create opportunities for people to make choices, and in turn, personalized experience is constructed. This individualized method of engagement creates ownership on the participants behalf. I imagine the steady incline of technological involvement in society will continue to shape the future of art and participatory culture in both positive and negative ways. Hopefully, it is the quality of experience that will forever remain in the hands of the user.

12. I especially appreciated the Ivey and Tepper article this week. I felt that it offered concrete evidence and examples of the ways that cultural life is transforming. The article’s title perfectly demonstrated my enthusiasm and disappointment in cultural trends as the subjects unfolded through the article. I was excited by the beginning positive approach to arts making, and recognized once again that the pendulum continues to swing from one extreme to another. Just as we begin to be disheartened by arts inactivity, the rise of the amateur occurs, and the independent artist triumphs. Ivey and Tepper state, “citizens are increasingly spending significant amounts of their leisure time engaged in serious, creative pursuits”. However, the end of the article was a little more somber in the discussion of unequal cultural lives and the challenge we have to “thicken” those cultural lives for all American audiences.

    I believe that the future of art and culture in society lies in the collaboration and accessibility of the arts. Collaboration of people as well as art genre is becoming the norm in the arts world. Lines are being blurred about ownership of art, and the way it is delivered to audiences. The expectation that art and all resources be available for anyone to access them and use them in whatever manner they find appropriate is changing the arts climate. Transmedia experiences are quickly becoming the only kind of experience, whether we prefer it that way or not. Business Insider recently highlighted a study conducted by Time Warner titled, “Fear the technology sluts and appaholics”. The study discovered that consumers in their 20’s change media 27 times within an hour. This shocking statistic demonstrates the need to reach our fast-paced, informed, and connected youth culture who has a hard time focusing attention. Transmedia is changing our future, and arts organizations will have a brighter and more relevant future if we can incorporate this approach.

13. Continuing technology errors I posted the wrong draft of my comment please refer to this one.

    I think anytime you pair the words imagine and future together it brings on a feeling of daunting. If you listen to the media their imagining of the future of art and culture and society is framed within a projection of data of how many less people participate in this or that type of art and the daunting idea of how to engage them. I think the future of art and culture in society should not just be focused on how to engage people but how to make arts more accessible to them. As graduate students we are privileged with an innate accessibility to art and a privileged status in our ability to participate with art and multiple platforms, ponder it, dissect it, and create stories around it. This privileged status causes us to take on a role of “cultural elite” that technology and economic change have conspired to create as Ivey and Tepper state in their article. So how do we break down this barrier and address Ivey and Tepper’s challenge of “thickening our cultural life” for all americans? I believe the answer is to begin to use transmedia experience and materials that lend themselves to extremes senses of accessibility to shape an open sourced thirdspace for arts to exist in. By open sourcing the arts in a transmedia environment and taking it out of the confines of museums like some institutions are already embracing the Tate, Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Gallery in posting their catalogues online for example or creating literal open structures like the examples on design boom that have multiple levels of accessibility physically and imagined we are able to create an open sourced public process and a new materiality to art (Lacy pp. 29). With this transmediafication of the arts though it does not answer the need as Lacy points out, to “locate these art practices within the trajectories of art history and cultural theory to give real texture and meaning to the notion of artist citizenship, and in so doing reconstruct the civic relevance of art (Lacy pp. 31).” To begin to give art the context that Lacy wants I think we need to scale the scope of art and how it is processed and taught. To scale it so that it is not first focused on a global understanding of arts and culture but from a community based understanding. When understanding first from a local view point its gains that materiality of life that Lacy speaks of, instead of straining to relate to a metaphor for life based on global culture. When we take ownership of our individual experience with art we are able to transcend to a stronger understanding and relation to a global culture of other individualized experiences.

    I think there is often a misunderstanding of how much art can accomplish. Can you really have a creative economy that is both monetarily valuable and creatively valuable? Somewhere in this paradigm no matter the value art has to a community in bringing it together or creating ownership of space, the art has to become marketable to an audience in order for it to have the transformations that Stern and Seifert talk about. This puts a commodification on art and means that some forms of art aren’t going to be valued as much as others. I think it is important to realize art can only do so much and to try and make it take on such strong roles as addressing urban poverty and urban vitality does a disservice to the personal experience someone can have with art. But I do agree that if we do not use creative sectors to change ideas of the “culture elitest” and accessibility to the arts in terms of economic equality and social inclusion that Stern and Seifert dilettante there will be no arts and culture in the future, this is because we working on a model that “accelerates inequality and exclusion.” Eventually when you have denied access enough you are left with nothing to elevate yourself from, and if there is no culture to process it how can the art survive? (Stern and Steifert p. 13).

14. Speaking of imagining the future of art and culture in society, I imagine that will be no distinct boundary to define an art world or a culture. In Ivey and Tepper’s article of cultural renaissance or cultural divide? The authors elaborated the idea that the space and distance are no longer the barriers to participate in art. An example in the article is that people’s entertainment happens at home. They read novels that connect them with the outside world, just as often sitting around the piano in the parlor or playing the guitar on the porch, meaning that people want to appreciate the music without necessarily attending a symphony. The arts become more accessible to human.

    In my opinion, remix and Mash-up also will affect art in the future and cultures. In the TED speech on the “Everything is a remix” website, the speaker proposed that “We are not self-made. We are dependent on one another”. This perspective not only clarifies our generations toward creating art, but also expounds that there are fewer and fewer original ideas in the society.

    Transmedia change the patterns of communicating and art learning, In Ivey and Tepper’s article, it mentions that much of the art can be produced and consumed in the home; many people contribute and learn from one another without necessarily considering themselves professional artists. The reasons come from the improvement of technology, approachable internet, and innovation of creating art methods. For example, a student can buy simple film making equipments to film, edit on his own computer and upload to his Vlog. The process of film making entirely is swifted by the transmedia.

15. With all the social media and technology that is emerging now, I envision the future of art and culture in society something like this. All people will be creating their own unique art with the help of transmedia platforms. For example, our generation has been sharing our art and photography through apps like Instagram. As stated in the video “Walking on Eggshells: Borrowing Culture in the Remix Age” the art that people are sharing may be crap but everyone will be sharing their art. It will no longer be just the musicians, DJ’s and visual artists, but instead everyone! The example in the video was about music. Someone will hear a song and then that listener will go to his friend and say “hey, check out my remix”. His friend will say, “Cool. that sounds dope…check out my version I created.”

    Watching the Walking on Eggshells video got me thinking a lot about how transmedia materials will shape the future. We are currently exposed to so much creative material through the Internet. I feel that a lot of people, including myself, have the desire to be creative and in some ways a need for it too. I think technology will allow us to share our creations more easily. This being said it is also easy to borrow ideas or materials without permission. How will these things affect the future? What material belongs to who and who is allowed to use it?

    I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I am working on my field guide about street dance. Last weekend I worked on creating a video to introduce the street dances that I will be focusing on. Since I don’t have the time or resources to film live events, I was borrowing videos from the Internet. While doing this I kept wondering, is this allowed? How to I give credit or site sources? Is this legal? I happened to show my video to lawyer, who said he wouldn’t sue me. But I wonder, if someone else saw this, would they take legal action? When are we supposed to give credit or take credit for the things we create?

    Using other people’s work means your worki isn’t 100% your creativity but it isn’t 0% either. The level of individual creativity lies somewhere in between 0 and 100. When thinking about creativity and borrowing, I think of the way we learn. As an athlete and an artist I know one great way of learning is modeling (or copying) a professional’s work. For example, if you want to learn to high jump, you should watch a professional do it and try to model his or her technique. Just like when learning to paint you can try to recreate a masterpiece to learn the artist’s technique. Previous artworks are part of creativity. I don’t think it should be called copying a master…rather I think the correct way to look at it is being inspired or influenced by one’s work.

    I think the future of art in society involves a lot of people creating a lot of artwork. An issue may be ethics and giving credit where it is deserved. When do you need permission to use someone’s creation and how do you give them credit? I think an advantage of this is lots of people creating and sharing artwork will lead to a more artistic and colorful society. Along with this, people could be happier too!

16. As with most things in life, I am an optimist. When considering the arguments put forth by Ivey and Tepper, in their article Cultural Renaissance or Cultural Divide? this personal trend remains the same. I am what these fellows would call a “cultural optimist.” While many aspects of today’s society can easily strip one of hope and joy, I relish in imagining a future society where everyone lives an educated and creative lifestyle. Of course, this kind of utopia would involve a greater transformation beyond the art and culture realm of global society. High hopes such as these would require an enormous sea change in politics, economy structures, consumerism, and much more that would take pages, volumes, to explore. At the same time, we are moving (slowly but surely) in that direction. As Ivey and Tepper outline, the revitalization of folk culture is on the rise, producing new micro markets that challenge the “dominance of 20th century mass markets.” This DIY revolution is evident not only in the arts realm, but also in the food industry. All over America, organic and “buy local” movements are booming, farmer’s markets are bustling, and home gardens are quite literally sprouting up in backyards, front yards, windowsills, and atop high rise condos. DIY food production is becoming more popular with home-brewing, pickling, and canning efforts. I think overall, there is a greater self-awareness of our own patterns of consumerism: how and where we spend our money, and attention to who we support with our hard-earned dollars. Supporting local economies in turn reinforce the community structure that houses us; whereas supporting a major corporation only keeps the wealth within an elite circle and only perpetuates the economic and creative gap. It is definitely an uphill battle against the mass market; large corporations make it difficult for many to even realize they have choices beyond what is fed to them.

    The folk revolution enables us to find ways of existing outside of this corporate dictated marketplace. Food is Free Project started in Austin, Texas, “grows community and food, while helping gain independence from a broken agricultural system” (Food Is Free / About). They offer free workshops on how to build sustainable wicking gardens with salvaged materials, encouraging neighbors to grow and share food together. The Food is Free Project now has chapters all over the world. The Austin Time Exchange Network similarly allows individuals to support one another without spending a dime. You can register your services into their database and earn Exchange Shares for each hour of service you perform. This creates a network of professionals and artists to exchange services on a time investment, rather than a dollar amount. Both of these organizations are grassroots efforts in place to strengthen communities, build relationships, support local economies, and ultimately, fight the man.

    Food Is Free Project (watch the video, it’s great!)
    http://foodisfreeproject.org/

    Austin Time Exchange Network
    http://www.austintimeexchange.org/

17. Remix Animated Sci-Fi Video Vision of the Future: http://vimeo.com/5003279