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Comments should address the main question for Module 4:
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How do you imagine the future of art and culture in society?
How might transmedia experience/materials shape the future?
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In your comment, include any subquestions/extensions/responses that the above questions push you toward. Address Module 4 reading/viewing assignments as relevant, and point us toward any other resources or examples that you may find (be sure to add these to the Diigo group as well!).
Comments should be posted by midnight on Monday, Nov. 14…
The future of art in regards to society is exciting to think about. There is a movement away from art being one person’s interpretation for the masses to view to a more collaborative movement where a whole society can contribute to a certain art piece to make a statement. “Community members can glean new perceptions on their own lives; and opportunities arise for joint projects of mutual benefit.” (Lacy: 27) This is well addressed in the Lacy article, and a great example is Judy Baca’s Great Wall in Los Angeles. This is a collaborative art project where people from the community work with professional artists to create a piece to symbolize the history of minorities in Los Angeles.
This mural, and its collaborative essence can be seen in what “the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calls “a revitalization of folk culture”” (Ivey). There is a rise in people wanting to create their own art. Not only to go to art galleries and see what the professionals are doing, but also to go back home and make their own statement with whatever medium pleases them most.
I believe the future of art in society will be based in people taking their own initiative to create their own art, and I feel it is being encouraged. Take those superstars who have been discovered online, like Justin Bieber. There are probably masses of other people who have been brought into the professional sphere of art by displaying their “pro-am” talents online. One that I can think of offhand is Nina Matsumoto, who through her displaying her art online was offered a job to create her own comic. This is also an example of how people are now able to judge art as they please. What once was the job of professional art critics, and those within the art world, is not the job of the masses, to choose what it is they enjoy and to create their own worlds surrounded by the art they chose.
Here’s the link to Nina Matsumoto’s story, I would suggest reading it!
http://manga.about.com/od/mangaartistinterviews/a/NinaMatsumoto.htm
Transmedia is becoming a tool for producing the ‘folkart of the future’. There is a shift happening, one that is lending itself away from an individual perception/ experience of art – to a more participatory one. As Valerie stated above, we are experiencing a growth of “a more collaborative movement where a whole society can contribute to a certain art piece to make a statement.” Different forms and variations of transmedia help to make this participation possible: as a society, we continue to absorb large amounts of information at quite a rapid pace. We are involved with a vast array of transmedia on levels that have not been experienced in the past – as we see each other on videos, blogs, websites, social media, etc. – we all leave a digital footprint. I believe that society is starting to embrace this engaging and participatory approach as a positive thing, in order to learn from it and become inspired by it.
I love the quote by Jean-Luc Godard: “It’s not where you take things from – its where you take them to.” I have a copy of this exact photo on my fridge! It helps me to remember that we draw on what we are inspired by for our own creativity and that the ideas that we have are products of other ideas, other creations, other things, etc., This quote is incredibly powerful and helps give a validity to the fact that we are all inspired (in one way or another) to take from others and build upon it and that we should not conceal the fact that we have been influenced or inspired by something or someone – but we should celebrate it. This is the free-flowing and open-thinking society that I believe we are starting to head into, as people start to take pride in celebrating what they have borrowed – naming it, instead of being shamed by it.
In his blog, Austin Kleon quotes German writer Goethe, saying, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” He talks about how artists are shaped by what they love and they collect things along the way that inspire them and help them to create meaningful art. I believe that our society is headed in a direction that embraces this open concept – an ‘idea sharing society’ – one that celebrates innovation and a building upon innovation. Less critical-thinking and more open-thinking. I would like to give a nod to a professor of mine who taught this type of open, sharing and free-flowing way of imagining the sharing of ideas – so check out his Tedx Talk here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_8n0gLmL9M if you have the time.
Also, if you want to check out Austin Kleon’s blog about creativity + notions of originality, you can find it here:
http://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/
Transmedia is becoming a tool for producing the ‘folk art of the future’. There is a shift happening – one that is lending itself away from an individual perception/ experience of art towards a more participatory one. As Valerie stated above, we are experiencing a growth of “a more collaborative movement where a whole society can contribute to a certain art piece to make a statement.” Different forms and variations of transmedia help to make this participation possible: as a society, we continue to absorb large amounts of information at quite a rapid pace. We are involved with a vast array of transmedia on levels that have not been experienced in the past – as we see each other on videos, blogs, websites, social media, etc. – we all leave a digital footprint. I believe that society is starting to embrace this engaging and participatory approach as a positive thing, in order to learn from it and become inspired by it.
I love the quote by Jean-Luc Godard: “It’s not where you take things from – its where you take them to.” I have a copy of this exact photo on my fridge! It helps me to remember that we draw on what we are inspired by for our own creativity and that the ideas that we have are products of other ideas, other creations, other things, etc. This quote is incredibly powerful and helps give a validity to the fact that we are all inspired (in one way or another) to take from others and build upon it and that we should not conceal the fact that we have been influenced or inspired by something or someone – but we should celebrate it. This is the free-flowing and open-thinking society that I believe we are starting to head into, as people start to take pride in celebrating what they have borrowed – naming it, instead of being shamed by it.
In his blog, Austin Kleon quotes German writer Goethe, saying, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” He talks about how artists are shaped by what they love and they collect things along the way that inspire them and help them to create meaningful art. I believe that our society is headed in a direction that embraces this open concept – an ‘idea sharing society’ – one that celebrates innovation and a building upon innovation. Less critical-thinking and more open-thinking. I would like to give a nod to a professor of mine who taught this type of open, sharing and free-flowing way of imagining the sharing of ideas – so check out his Tedx Talk here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_8n0gLmL9M if you have the time.
Also, if you want to check out Austin Kleon’s blog about creativity + notions of originality, you can find it here:
http://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/
Bill Ivey and Steven J. Tepper wrote in The Chronicle Review, “Your everyday experiences are reflected in most forms of culture that you consume and enjoy”. Human society is taking some resemblance to a Mexican jumping bean. We started off grounded as cavemen and cavewomen, working with what we had, the earth. We started learning and we got really excited really quick. We left the earth, but we keep coming back to it. Eventually we realize that jumping from the earth is no good for any sentient being, and perhaps we should just chill out and ground. The worm in the bean either hatches or dies.
So maybe this isn’t a great metaphor, but I think you get what I am saying, which is more like this: It is a growing fad to get away from big box shops, and to buy from local shop owners. As Ivey and Tepper wrote later, the fad of high art is dying and folks are appreciating lowbrow art. We are learning to work the three R’s and protect our environment, sustainably- sustainably everything is hot now. We are resorting back to our roots- yet we seem to still ride the wave of excitement and rapid pace of growth.
More than ever humans crave the easy accessibility to everything. This is a fad too. I will agree with Linda Stone, “Before the Internet , I made more trips to the library and more phone calls. I read more books and my point of view was narrower and less informed. I walked more, biked more, hiked more and played more. I made love more often.” Personally, I do not like where society is going with technology. It definitely has benefits, which are unarguable, but I becoming connected, disconnects us. Youth struggles with social skills because they can have a better conversation when they aren’t looking someone in the eye and they can rehearse or edit every thought. Folks are more into their virtual life rather than their actual tangible life. This is scary. I don’t think it is natural. We do not know what is going to come of use from the effects of technology because our medical and psychological studies cannot keep up. I could go on and on, but ultimately I think there is going to be a tremendous crash of some sort; I’m not sure what kind; use your imagination. I do think that with technology, more forms of transmedia take shape. This is pretty cool. But I still stand with what I mentioned above.
It is a great thing that we are learning the ways of our indigenous again. We are going to need them. For art, it will reflect everything and remix everything in history that builds to the moment. Always. Suzanne Lacy says that Buddhist art is becoming more popular. I’m an advocate of that; not out of religion, but spirituality.
I really enjoyed the readings this week, or it’s maybe that all the topics we talked about in class are coming together for me. I thought Bill Ivey brings up excellent points in his article in regards to the future of art and culture in society. I agreed with the points he presented about the professionalization of art and entertainment worlds and the mass production of art and culture in contemporary times compared to earlier centuries. But then I also had an “ah-hah” moment when he writes about the Henry Jenkins’ ideas around the “revitalization of folk culture” as people begin to access transmedia art worlds. The “pro-ams” and the influence of the DIY culture has had a huge impact on the realm of art and culture today—these were points I hadn’t considered. Still, people with more resources continue to have expressive life that provides them more access than those that don’t.
Lacey’s article provided some excellent examples of new and exciting ways to use transmedia sources to bring more art and culture to the general public. I went to Judy Baca’s own website after reading about her. She is obviously savvy, intelligent, multi-talented, as well being an impassioned community activist and proponent of bringing the arts and culture to the people.
The blogs brought up good themes as well. “Cultural Commons” presented excellent points. The idea of ownership of property seems like such a Western one, although the Tribe I am working with wants sole intellectual property rights to my terminal project work. The “open source” movement is one way to make a change in this area of sole private ownership. “The Cultural Landscape Foundation” presents an amazing example of a way to circumvent the ideas around private property ownership for the betterment of the general public.
Many of the articles rely heavily on the internet, and the ability to navigate these art worlds. For the poor and those with limited English language abilities these available resources cannot be accessed and utilized. The playing field needs to become more level.
Whenever I imagine the future of art and culture within our American society, I always think of the broken education system within our nation and how standardization or core curriculum plus the lack of funding for the arts has pushed the arts out of the public schools. With this in mind, I believe that the future of art and culture in American society is at a crossroads where both the arts and cultures will become infused within the education system or they will be removed completely. Of course, I am hoping they become infused but there are many obstacles and challenges to overcome in order to guarantee that the arts and culture will not be continuously ignored within the education system. It would be ideal that the arts and culture would be used as teaching tools within the classroom to foster creativity and provide additional ways for students to learn. However, after having the opportunity to teach an after school program at a public school within Baltimore, Maryland, I realize that this ideal is far from occurring within the next five or ten years. Teaching within the public school system in Baltimore was an eye-opening experience because the arts were not integrated within the curriculum and expressing culture was frowned upon. However, after learning and teaching within a charter school in New York City, gave me hope after having such a traumatic experience in Baltimore.
The school in New York City is called Quest to Learn and connects with the digital age through transmedia experiences and materials by allowing each student to design, create, and play. My experience at Quest 2 Learn was extremely different than I imagined it to be. I respect the curriculum designers and how difficult it is to design curriculum that is fun but also educational and I can’t imagine what it would be like to design curriculum daily for each course which is so infused with transmedia resources. In addition, I learned how misconceptions about a school can be portrayed through the media. For example, I was shocked to find out that the students at Quest 2 Learn are not sitting in front of computers all the time but instead utilizing technology to research and connect the curriculum into their daily lives. As you can see, the transmedia experience/materials are already shaping the future of art and culture in society. Yet, in the education system it depends on which type of school, geographic location, and social-economic class a child belongs to that depends on the future direction of art and culture within a community.
Check out the website below to learn more about how programming and the arts/culture are being utilized at Quest to Learn.
http://q2l.org/
There are so many definitive statements for the future of art and culture in society. Art will be more and more accessible and participatory (the consumption of many cultural forms viewed as superior to the consumption of only high or elite cultural forms), culture will be made in homes and in small groups (the ProAm movement), the individual will have more choice regarding how they create and manage their own cultural platform (curatorial me), ‘the future will be open source everything’. Like many of my classmates, the most striking thing I read in these articles was that this is not the rule for all. Not even the rule for all in the United States.
I know this is only a component of the question, but I think it’s very important to include. According to a late 2010 Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration survey of American homes, “Over a third of people in the United States do not access broadband at home and nearly the same percentage ‘do not use the Internet anywhere.’” Of the percentage that doesn’t have access nearly 30% said they couldn’t afford it, and another 11% reported that quality internet access just wasn’t available. I didn’t have internet access outside of work before I came here, partially because of the expense, but also because internet access is an enabler for laziness regarding activities that promote self actualization. By contrast, my family in rural Kentucky wanted to access the internet when I left so that we could Skype, but are waiting for a provider that is reported to move into the area that will provide wireless for less than $50 per month. In their past experience, they paid exorbitant prices for internet that only worked about 20% of the time. At the same time, my siblings don’t have access at school, and the small library hosts only one day with hours late enough for families to access after work.
On the flip, are we so sure that the massification of cultural availability should be the bearer of our cultural future? As Karen detailed, we all know that our youth are spending more time than ever connected to media; much of that time is spent as a passive consumer, not a participatory contributor. Especially for those families that may only access mass culture, I more than a little concerned that the youth of today, so thoroughly engrossed in video games, television, and internet, spend significantly less time mastering an instrument, working alongside their elders to learn domestic crafts, helping in the garden or on the farm, or actively listening to their cultural stories. Although those cultures may live on through internet sharing, the rightful bearers of those cultures are less likely to strongly identify with them, and thus we risk fewer and fewer people forming a solid cultural identity linked to the place. While a variation on Ivey’s point, this is yet another factor contributing to the potential thinning of the under-privileged American’s cultural life.
I don’t intend to sound entirely pessimistic, as I’m certain that the trends toward cultural democracy are wholly beneficial for me personally and likely all of us with our level of education and access. I feel empowered by my newfound abilities to capture, synthesize, manipulate, and recreate snippets of information (thank you AAD), and immediately understand the value of these tools in both cultural administration and personal learning. Simultaneously, I feel that it’s tremendously important for all of us as cultural workers to consider our privilege, and then be active, creative problem solvers on the issue of figuring out how to distribute these tools to those we have the best ability to reach (arm the have nots with the power of active participation in culture). Lexi, it looks like Quest to Learn is on the right track…
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/almost-a-third-ofamericans-still-dont-use-the-net.ar-s
I think that in the immediate future, we will see a continued fascination with using the available media devices to produce the type of derivative works that populate our culture, if for no other reason that there is so much source material to manipulate, that little new source material will be needed.There will be no reason to go through the long and arduous process of creating ” original ” work, or what we think of as originally generated work. As long as you can run a computer program and have other people’s work to use, why waste your time becoming a master violinist, guitarist, pianist ? – that’s SO 20th century. Eventually, as with energy resources, the day will come when source material will run out, and the thin copy (read ” remix “) of a copy of a copy of a copy will fail to touch our souls.
Cutting & pasting is not the same as learning the skills of becoming a master painter, print maker, shape note singer, Santos carver, or Irish step dancer. Is there re-mixing in the process of these ” old school ” disciplines ? Of course there is. All of the great Rock guitarists of the 60’s through to the present owe HUGE debts to the blues greats from the 20’s through the 50’s, to Charlie Christian & Eddie Lang, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Bo Diddley, Muddy, Wolf, and on and on and on. The difference is that those who borrowed from the past had to re-mix ” in their own head” and had to use a set of skills that were unique to them as individuals, different from a standard set of computer commands. How you approach the use of your instrument is very unique to each individual; if I play a Chuck Berry riff ( lets say, the opening riff to Johnny B Goode, ) I will sound very different from Chuck. That’s because while I am using the same idea ( or riff ), I am the one generating it, and it will sound very different on my guitar than on Chuck’s guitar. When someone samples, they are using the EXACT SAME RIFF, as generated by Chuck.
It was funny watching the re-mix clips, and hearing them talking about how Led Zeppelin blatantly ripped off so many other artists of the time, though they weren’t the only ones doing that. The Stones did a version of Robert Johnson’s ” Love In Vain “, which they got around by saying that it was a ” traditional ” song. They knew EXACTLY where it came from. The thing with Zeppelin is that they took the original versions and made them so kick-ass, F*#@ing better, you can kinda forgive them. As for Stairway To Heaven ? Don’t cry too much for the boys in Spirit, for they both got the Stairway To Heaven riff from a very old English folk song. I think we are all the better for Zepp’s remix.
Where does this leave us ? I think that making room for the new art forms, including re-mixes, is essential for a cross pollenization of ideas in our modern and increasingly interconnected world. I think they need to be recognized as separate categories and assessed on their own merits to be fair to all sides. I’m sorry, but a computer generated image simply is not in the same league as a painting by Giotto, Raphael, or Van Gogh, just as somebody putting together a great remix of classic guitar solos isn’t in the same league as Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, or Stevie Ray Vaughn – they just aren’t.To me, Rap isn’t music – it’s spoken word performance, put to music (often a ” re-mix” ). Rappers don’t play instruments, read or write music, or sing, hence, they are not musicians, though they are performers. They are in a unique art form. Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them, and recognize them and the re-mixers for the novelty of their work. Just don’t call them artists or musicians, they are not. They are something new that deserves it’s own category .
I’m not sure I wouldn’t call rappers artists. Are not slam poets artists? I can understand not wanting to call them musicians, not sure about not calling them artists.
How do you imagine the future of art and culture in society?
The last sentence from the Ivey and Tepper article stood out for me.
“Our challenge today — as educators, artists, and arts leaders — is to figure out a way to thicken our cultural life for all Americans.”
“…for all Americans.” stood out in particular.
The future of art and culture in society seems to be traveling down two different roads; one with travelers of Florida’s “culture class” and the other with Targets and Best-Buys on every corner. Ivey and Tepper describe one side of this cultural divide to be the right side and the other the wrong side. And while I don’t agree that it’s ours to decide whether one is right or wrong, I do agree that it is our responsibility as art leaders to make either road or either side of the divide an option for society.
I think the challenges facing arts organizations are greater than ever before. There are multiple audiences looking to access art in different ways: at home through technology and media, by visiting a venue, on a consistent basis (subscriber or member) or through single visits. Are performing art centers only programming to maximize contributions or are they programming what their audiences ask of them? And if they don’t program what brings in money, how will they be able to program next year’s season?
Ultimately, I think the future of art and culture in our American society relies heavily on accessibility. How can we as arts administrators -for lack of a better metaphor- build bridges connecting the roads.
I appreciate the statistics on national Internet access that Savannah shared. I am skeptical of how “inclusive” web-based cultural participation can be when 30% of the nations population (roughly 100 million people) does not use it. Kirby Ferguson says in his video, “Everything Is a Remix” that “anybody can remix anything – music, video, photos, whatever – and distribute it globally, pretty much instantly. You don’t need expensive tools.” I would argue that the tools you need for computer-based remixes are, on the contrary, quite expensive for many Americans and, thus, exclude a large population from engaging in what our class has identified as the emerging platform for culture and artistic expression.
When I researched the issue of Internet access and availability further, I found a recent article in the New York Times announcing what the Federal Communication Commission called the “biggest effort ever to help close the digital divide”. In spring of 2012, the FCC, in cooperation with most major cable companies, will begin to offer high-speed Internet for $9.99/month to qualifying low-income families with at least one school-age child in the home. I will be very interested to see how effective this initiative is and what it means for Internet culture participation. The FCC identifies “cost and perceived relevance to their lives” as the main reasons most Americans choose to live without Internet, and therefore “are trying to make it less expensive and more valuable”. I would be curious to hear how the FCC and major cable companies plan to make the Internet “more valuable”.
Who are the Americans without Internet? What are the real factors limiting their engagement with web-based technology? How might web-based culture change, diverge, and evolve if/when they come online? Will the FCC’s initiative be enough to entice their participation?
I think it is important to step back and examine political and economic forces that influence public participation in emerging technologies and how that will inevitably shape the future of art and culture in America.
Here is a link to the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/business/media/fcc-and-cable-companies-push-to-close-digital-divide.html?_r=1&ref=federalcommunicationscommission.
I think Savannah makes some excellent points. I don’t see her points as being pessimistic at all but as focusing on a side of this whole transmedia topic that thus far the class has not focused on too heavily. Although one cannot deny the noticeably recent influx of a media heavy and participatory heavy creative culture it would be misleading to say that this is our only consideration in defining our current situation. If we only talk about art and culture being media and participatory based then we are setting up a predetermined idea of who our arts and culture participants are and what and who is able to have influence. This is an overall trend happening but this overall trend is only visible because it is able to reach a larger audience who can than critique and analyze it. However, those visible things and the people behind them are only those people choosing and able to be involved. Are we only talking about the current “mainstream” art world? Who will be included in the art history books of the future? Do we need art history books in the future? Who would write these books? Will people read books? When are we going to become pure consciousness, disregarding our human form, encapsulated in a small pod? These are the questions I have.
When reading about Systems Theory for my field guide I read something along the lines of: “Society is people’s environment and people are society’s environment”.
I liked thinking about this because it is almost saying that there is no way to answer such questions as “how do you imagine the future of art and culture in society”. We aren’t dealing with a solid form on a linear path, but more like a plasma blob which is eating and regurgitating itself. Society is people’s environment: we live in what has been built for us by the past, this constitutes what we are able to know and build upon (where we get our pieces to make our puzzles). People are society’s environment: We also have the ability to have a present effect on the society for future people’s society (one cannot help but be influential by simply existing).
There are patterns that always happen, including patterns within art and culture. From these patterns we can predict likely outcomes but we cannot predict actual outcomes. As talked about in the Ivy/Tepper article, there was a 20th century effort to industrialize and professionalize artistic production which allowed a more cooperate control. This effort has been thoroughly exercised and some may say it has been exhausted which provokes a disturbance in these efforts. This disturbance is seen in what Henry Jerkins is calling a “revitalization of folk culture”. This is an “anti” responds to the way the 20th century has been developing. To combat this we have created, as people, a culture in which a “more cultural choice is made possible”. We are responding to the environment in which we created to create a new environment.
This can be exemplified with a look into documented art historical movements. As one example, Abstract Expressionism and “action-painting” celebrated the gesture of brushstroke and movement but from this we see stemming a responds to move away from this to celebrating a clear surface with the Color-Field Movement and “hard-edge painting”. It is all a matter of how we can evolve, not just as people but as a society. Evolution means change but change is unpredictable. So we are now headed off into the future, seeing what has came before and feeling what is currently around us. Transmedia and the celebration of derivative work is definitely what we have going on right now. New ways to celebrate participation/transmedia/derivative work are being created everyday and the strive to push these ideas forward is at full force within many observable participants. I do not feel comfortable saying that I know how everything will shape our future. Perhaps the idea of transmedia and our current cutting edge technology will became archaic in time and what we fell is the direction we are going is what we want to see or all we are capable of seeing, being limited by our time and place. I personally am planning on moving to Mars in my future, which was pointed out as a possibility for me by a science magazine I read in the fourth grade, and I don’t think they have internet there.
Rappers as Artists ? Yeah, I could go with that. As long as they aren’t making computer art !
I think I was still referring to people making computer generated images. Can we think of these people as being sound and image manipulators ?
I imagine the future of art and culture in society to represent a departure of traditional elitist ideals and values. Class distinction will not dictate what is labeled art and what is not. The current Occupy movements in this country are examples of Americans breaking away from social inequality and corporate greed, and I think art will strongly represent these ideas, more so than it already does.
My definition of cultural elite is different from the article by Ivey and Teppe, which claims the new cultural elite to be those who participate and create art while the non-elite rely on consolidated media to tell them what art is. The article calls the latter “the wrong side of the cultural divide”, but does not expand on the claim, which I feel is necessary.
I would like to take this space to express what I hope to be the future of art as it relates to instrumental music. As a musician personally invested in this area, I feel that music is lagging to other art forms in terms of progression and innovation. To me, instrumental music is not pushing boundaries in ways I think it potentially could., I hope that instrumental music (music played on historic or “classical” instruments) will, for example, express and challenge political and social ideas or even incorporate vulgarity. I want it to become more inclusive and relatable, and to shed its’ current (and I feel misguided) stuffy image. The modern artist who I believe does this best is Jacob ter Veldhuis, a Dutch composer pairing remixed, non-musical ideas with orchestral instruments. An example of his work, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R1Ei8ozSyQ, is The Garden of Love for soprano saxophone and ghettoblaster (boom box). This piece starts with a recording of William Blake’s poem The Garden of Love but soon incorporates musical and non-musical sounds with the saxophone live performance. The poem is remixed to rhythmic variations. In hindsight, this example is more closely related to the last module, but I didn’t remember it until afterwards and very much wanted to share it.
Great stuff so far, everyone (as usual)…keep it coming! As in almost any consideration of the “future” we find it hard to break away from articulating our visions/ideas/hopes/fears in light that which already exists (the present…or even the past). This, then, is the challenge: how do we imagine something that hasn’t happened without pinning that imaginary to the things around us that are happening? Discussions about the role/place of media and technology are fruitful—but not the only “now” in front of us. Issues of access (or lack) and interest (or lack) are important, as many of you have pointed out, and I’m certain we could list a whole bunch of other issues (political, aesthetic, ethical, economic, etc) that are also key ingredients here. So, keep thinking on this and pushing the question toward some kind of ‘usable’ shape…
America is facing a growing cultural divide, a divide separating an expressive life that exudes promise and opportunity from one manifesting limited choice and constraint.” (Ivey and Tepper, 2006)
Bill Ivey and Steven J. Tepper discuss a clear cultural divide between those with resources (i.e. education, time, money) to express themselves creatively and those without. I think the future of art and culture in society will lead to an increase in this gap. The younger, middle-class generation will continue to use innovative digital tools to increase their creativity, visibility, and cultural awareness. While new technologies develop, those without access to these tools will continue to rely on conglomerate, mainstream media and are left to consume and participate in culture the limited ways that these platforms provide.
Because technological capabilities have been increasing rapidly, it may be to the disadvantage of older generations to learn or keep-up with the manner in which we consume and participate in art/cultural activities digitally. For the past three years I have volunteered at an assisted living facility for seniors; many of them had just recently learned to use cell phones. I doubt that they will learn to utilize Twitter to set up a knitting circle or warn their friends about the perils of today’s menu. Many family members in the generation ahead of mine know how to use a computer and conduct internet searches, but do not use online resources to express themselves creatively. (I am sure that there several middle-aged parents and grandparents that are able to creatively participate in culture digitally, I just haven’t personally seen it yet.) There is a large learning curve when it comes to digital participation that favors youth (as most cultural themes seem to do) and those valiant enough to maintain their MacWorld subscriptions in their twilight years. I can merely predict that the gap between digitally integrated populations and those relying on mainstream forms of cultural participation will increase.
One determining role that transmedia play and will continue to play in the future is to build an always larger community. As mentioned in the Edge blog, “the global web is compared to an ecosystem, a collective brain, a universal memory, a global conscience, a total map of geography and history”. A recent example could be the use of Twitter at ‘Occupy Portland’ movement and how transmedia quickly built community awareness. After the police started to intervene against the movement, occupiers and participants posted pictures and videos that showed some of the police interventions against occupiers.
Being myself a member of the Occupy Portland Twitter, I was amazed by how fast the news was spread, and I realized how transmedia allow individuals to build solidarity between communities despite the physical distance. In addition, some people are more encouraged to participate through transmedia than physically, a solution offered by transmedia such as Twitter. Like the 2001 Spoleto Festival USA’s website mentions, transmedia “bring together otherwise discrete community constituencies, uncommonly crossing racial, economic and geographic lines”. Chris Johnson and Suzanne Lacy were looking for the same process through their work ‘Oakland Project’ and ‘Code 33’. They aimed to show the “civic relevance of art” and how art can fight against social discrimination by encouraging participation of all citizens. If transmedia build collectivity, however, in what ways can they also transform individuality?
Bill Ivey shows that “In tandem with the democratization of cultural production and the establishment of a pervasive do-it-yourself creative ethos, we are witnessing the emergence of the “curatorial me.” In other words, transmedia allow citizens to explore new art worlds and cultures without institutional intermediaries. This encourages the idea of “free culture” that aims to defend free use of former creative works ideals. Transmedia complexifies but also opens possibilities to use our art heritage in other creative ways. It is up to each individual to choose whether art works should be remixed for free or only with the guarantee of copyrights.
Finally, I hope that transmedia will reinforce art’s capacity to reach for communities and individuals who would benefit greatly from culture but cannot easily access to it. For example, it would be interesting for individuals confined in institutions such as prisons or mental hospitals to explore some of opportunities offered by transmedia. They could take a walk in the Columbia Park thanks to The Cultural Landscape Foundation website and would be able teleport themselves in another world…
When I read the question on how I imagine the future of art and culture in society, I thought I already see the future of art in American society. Everything we are doing right now it’s building the future of the arts and culture sector. The arts and culture we are generating right now are compiling aesthetics, values and ideologies from everything that has been created and recreated until today. As we have discussed in the class, there are layers of remixing works in order to create something new, as Godard said “…it’s where you take [the works] to.” Today’s technology has created a broader access to cultures’ practices around the world and this has created complex issues, such as concepts of “cultural imperialism” and debates about intellectual property, as the Lewis Hyde mentions it in the Cultural Commons Project. However, I am not saying if this is either good or bad, it is the reality we live in and it is our starting point. When cultural elements start to bleed into other cultures they are forming into something new, they are no longer the original elements but new idiosyncrasies, values and contexts have been attached to them. These new cultural expressions belong to a particular time and place now, as Suzanne Lacy discusses in Time in Place: New Genre Public Art a Decade Later, the criticism and value attachments to them change from the context the works are generated from and located.
Thus, I see the future of art and culture in society as more participatory and at the same time as inseparable from an individual’s daily life. As Ivey and Tepper’s article describes how the technological advances generate an easier access to create and propagate cultural expressions. As the authors say, it is not only the technology understood as digital media, but all other creative activities from knitting to music that are bringing groups of “pro-am” people together to curate their art and cultural consumption.
Arts expression and culture is not headed to an end goal, but is evolving. It will continue to transform and shift in a progressive manner as it has throughout history. In science it is explained that evolution is not a ladder with humans at the top as the pinnacle of creation. Evolution is more like a tree with many different branches that all represent a different ways an organism might fit into the world “and we are just one of many leaves on the tree.” Imagine the tree is our cultural commons, our common creative experience, the branches are different ways we can experience art, the leaves are our unique experiences and manifestations of cultural interaction.
The changes laid out in the Ivey and Tepper article show the control/influence of culture constantly moving around from one group to another. From the private art markets to the amateur DIY’ers, to mass produced homogenized culture. The external influences of technology, the “curatorial me”, and the current climate of cultural democracy will create new niches to be filled with new interpretations of artistic participation and remixes of old ideas. We will never be free of influence, so our relationship to art will continue to change and evolve and must change in order to maintain relevance in the society
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_54
To first respond to Richard’s post, I disagree that people will stop working to master various musical instruments. In fact, the Ivey/Tepper article discusses that “fueled by the pro-am revolution, the sale of guitars in the last 1o years has increased threefold.” Obviously not all of those people are going to become virtuosos, but source material will not disappear.
And not to pick on you, Richard, but I also think there needs to me more acceptance of new tools. Sure, plenty of computer generated images will not be in the same league as a Giotto painting, but neither will most paintings. This strikes too much as blaming the tools and that seems unfair. In part, what makes the artists you discuss great was their innovation (and obviously technical skill is key, as well). But innovation can appear in many places and making broad distinctions about what is Art (with a capital A) and what is not does not seem useful. Arguably, many of the projects Lacy described in her article push the boundaries of what can be considered art.
Actually, I think that is what is so key to the future of art and culture—the ability to push the boundaries of art and a big part of that is the kinds of tools we use. This isn’t a new idea, but there are (and will continue to be) new tools available.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about in regards to “what the future of art and culture will be” is the things that we can expect to stay the same or at least similar. I think there are important human needs/desires that will either be constant or evolve much more slowly. I’m looking at this from a standpoint of “what do people hope to gain from art or arts organizations”. Like, why do people like art or engage in artistic endeavors. Obviously I don’t claim to have all the answers, but it seems that key large issues that all people strive for are things like: belonging, connection, the ability to share, to create, to be heard, etc. These are the kinds of things we see in many of the artistic interactions discussed in the reading. The Judy Baca Great Wall of LA, for example, allows people to take part in a creation of something they believe in that is larger than themselves and will last. The same goes for a number of other events discussed in Lacy’s article.
Yes, art and culture will continue to shift and change as technologies change, but I think many of the “whys” surrounding art and art-making will keep that art very relatable and understandable.
Ivey and Tepper agree with Thomas Bender’s theory, concluding that our political texture–and, subsequently, our artistic and cultural textures–has gone from thick to thin. Less politics, arts, and culture are, allegedly, informing our daily lives. I have to disagree, or, rather, I disagree with the implication that the “thin” texture Bender describes is less valid, useful, or important than a “thick” texture.
The number of media outlets (news, arts, and otherwise) has exploded in recent years. Certainly, some conversation has thinned out due to the vast expansion; the more topics available for conversation and the greater variation in outlets disseminating information, the less distilled the public conversation. More information, however, does not make the “thinness” of conversation a bad thing, especially in comparison to what is hypothesized as “thick” conversation. If thick conversation is created from fewer outlets with less information, does that mean that conversation will be more dense with questions and critical thought? More criticism? More scholastic or reasoned thinking? I doubt it.
I think the future lies in the distillation of what our culture is currently experiencing. Vast technologies, art forms, and cultural influences are going to continue to be explored through transmedia. The next step before more invention is the refining of current experience. For some, this may mean great artists who excel in their particular instrumental skill. For others, innovations in the use of technology to remix and revamp the way we look at the world. As we learn to filter the information available to us, we are able to create better, more meaningful discussion regarding arts and culture. Will that mean a “refining” in some way of our arts? Our culture? Maybe; maybe not. But it’s my hope for our future.
The reading materials this week had a lot to do with modern art as an openly-shared creative commons that was tending towards a re-vitalization in folk art, and may or may not be lost in the shadow of media giants/ consumerism. There was also an interesting connection between politics and art—Lacy seemed to think that art shapes politics, while Ivey and Tepper seemed to be of the opinion that politics shapes the arts. Even in Wikipedia, the evolution of open-source has been shaped by subtle political and economic forces. I even got a subtle “99%”/occupy vibe from Ivey and Tepper—“…a divide separating an expressive life that exudes promise and opportunity from one manifesting limited choice and constraint. It is not a gap marked by the common signposts—red versus blue states, conservatives versus liberals, secularists versus orthodox. And it is more embedded than the digital divide that separates citizens from technology. It is a divide based on how and where citizens get information and culture…” (second to last page).
At the risk of sounding too cliché and repetitive of current events, I hope that the future and growth of art and culture can be left in the hands of the 99%, and not just that 1%. It seems that the negative view that Ivey and Tepper bring up in the second part of their article in the Chronicle is suggesting that there could be a cultural divide re-emerging, dictated by the resources offered to a larger percent and detrimental to the production of original, non-professional, non-mainstream artworks. I hope that the future generations can prove this wrong, and follow through with the more positive view of pro-am art, a renaissance of folk art, and the shaping of politics through art.
The transmedia experience could, and is, help to revolutionize the pro-Am movement through open-source cultural exchanges. As Lacy lays out different ways of promoting critical discourse of modern art, it became evident that she may have been trying to say something much simpler: We all need to become anthropologists. We all need to go out and experience different aspects of art in our era; whether as an emic (insider’s) view of an art scene you are familiar with, or an etic (outsider’s) view an artistic practice you have never seen before, we all need to compile a holistic view of our cultural generation’s artistic practices. By providing an open-source forum of discussion in trans-media form, we can help widen the spectrum of artistic ventures in the United States, or the World, and not leave the cultural evolution to a select few. “…art is a catalyst for the political issues of [our] day: ‘Art allows us to get at things that people can’t get at on their own.’” (Lacy, p. 24)
I too worry that the “gap between digitally integrated populations and those relying on mainstream forms of cultural participation will increase.” And I appreciated Hilary’s view on generational differences as I appreciated Savannah’s statistics. I liked the sentiment reflected in so many comments about being aware of an increasing gap and to utilize our roles as emerging art leaders for good in this issue, it makes me happy about our program. I spent a lot of time thinking about how my mom would react to art trends, specifically in terms of participatory practices in museums. I think she would be overwhelmed by all of the following, “curatorial engagement (selecting, editing, organizing, voting), interpretive engagement (performing, remaking an existing work of art), or inventive engagement (creating something entirely new) (James Irvine Foundation). I think she would be just as overwhelmed in the historically “snobby” “refined art” museums. I get why my mom doesn’t go to museums. I then spend even more time trying to think of ways for her to be comfortable around art and culture. I’m not sure where art and culture will be in our future. There will be those that have fully embraced the transmedia/DIY/information sharing/remixing practices and will create amazing new pieces but I hope that this doesn’t neglect/leave out other populations. I hope that as arts leaders we keep all groups in mind. How cool would it be if this “creative class” that Florida writes created ways to involve multiple classes and communities. However I worry there will just be more separation. As I read the Ivey-Tepper article, specifically about “Creatives” want to make things…and live in interesting cities. I thought about the NYT article that Doug Blandy sent us about the entrepreneurial/hipster generation that is found in Portland. Similar communities are not found throughout the whole country. I hope that the large differences in how communities embrace (or not embrace) art and culture isn’t a forever part of our future.
Currently, the art world consists of skulls covered in diamonds selling for millions of dollars. It consists of photographs of Christ submerged in urine and photographs of men in sadomasochist poses. It consists of blank canvases, spray-painted walls, and ink in skin. Currently, art can be legal or it can be illegal. It can censored or uncensored. Art can be pretty or ugly. It can be made with raw materials or through technology. Art can be present in a gallery or on the street. It can be sold, given away, auctioned away, stolen, and recreated into another work of art. There are arguments that art can, essentially, be anything, that we are art. Living is an art. The food I made for dinner tonight was art. The party I threw the other weekend – that was art.
So where in the world will art take us in the future? And how will transmedia and materials shape this future?
It’s tough. Transmedia, and I suppose I am speaking solely of the technological side of transmedia, has already been used to transform the current status of the art world so much. I think we need to consider where technology is headed before we can consider how it will affect the art world. Perhaps that is the biggest picture of it all. How will the things that influence art (politics, economy, technology, culture, etc) change? Maybe this is a silly question because everything (and anything) potentially influences art. But this could be the answer, or not, to the question of how I imagine the future of art and culture in society. So where will the economy be in thirty years? Hopefully it will be booming! Where will technology be in twenty or thirty years? Will our society speed up even more in the demand for information, or will we slow down? (I’m guessing we’ll continue to speed up.) What kind of diversity will we have in the US? The real question is: how will this affect art and culture? Its obvious that we learn from out past and our past shapes our future. And maybe my question is not so different from the initial question. But it might be important to recognize that there is a difference between asking where art and culture will be in the future verse where society and/or technology in general will be in the future. How will our interactions change? Many people seem to think that technology has changed our interactions drastically – that we have moved away from the intimate, face-to-face interaction and substituted it for the impersonal, online interaction – be that with art, people, or information.
I would like to say I knew or could imagine where art and culture will be in the future but I’m not sure I care too much for the outcome. I think I care more for how we get there. I am much more interested in the controversy of censorship over Mapplethorpe’s show at the Cordova in 1989 than the outcome: the NEA recognizing the need to reevaluate their grant selections. How boring is that? I would much rather argue and yell about how Helm’s is a censoring a$$ and imagine dressing him in drag and throwing him down a runway. (I had to.) This is, after all, what inspired the NEA four, Chris Ofili’s The Virgin Mary and for most of the Young British Artists for that matter.
I personally think that more people are becoming slightly more open to their interpretation of “culture” in general. Transmedia is helping us all to reimagine different ways of including items into our definition of folklore, of arts worlds, of communities.
Another trend I see is a general deconstruction of these issues in an historical sense as they are actually happening, as opposed to looking back and trying to figure out what went on in certain “eras” already gone by. I think I have this on my mind because of the recent email we all received from Doug Blandy- a New York Times piece called “Generation Sell” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-entrepreneurial-generation.html which is meant to characterize and uncover similar values in an entire population of people. When I started a small discussion about it on my Facebook page, one person said, “I think I mostly love seeing these elements of the culture around me historically contextualized.” We are already wondering how this will all “look and seem” to the people and ideologies of the future. Its a reflexive self-awareness that I’m not sure was always so in the spotlight.
In a similar vein, creating Open Source projects or crowd-sourcing artistic endeavors is pulling another community-minded aspect into the mix. The effect is that works are flexible and changing- its hard to say even when they are “done” or not. It seems to be generally understood that what is old will cycle back around. Art is participatory, art is a motion and a journey rather than an ending product, art is polyvocality, its a blurred aesthetic line between “artiste” and amateur, highbrow and lowbrow.
Bill Ivey’s worry about “thick” or “thin” experiences and accessibility doesn’t seem to concern us much simply because we are awash in choice if we want to be.
Its always kind of fun to look back at what we once envisioned the future to look like. In case you missed my little diigo addition, here it is:
http://www.paleofuture.com
Matt Novak blogs on past visions of the future, and materials related to retro-futurism.
Just to give you an idea- Here’s a neat example of a film made in 1967 made to imagine a kitchen of the future in 1999. http://youtu.be/Z0lArfzw59c
I can only hope our musings on what the future will be like will seem as cute, hopeful, and datedly quaint as this someday ;)
I’m having a time deciding which direction I want to take this comment. On one hand I understand immense value in the newfound transparency in contemporary art and culture. What I mean by transparency in this sense is, relatively speaking, the ability for individuals to freely and rapidly publish their work to a vast audience.
But there are consequences to this transparency and freedom. The amount of derivative work now available to the general public through internet communication creates an infinite repository of stuff. Is all this stuff worth caring about? Why is so much stuff now available to anyone with an internet connection? Do people really need all this stuff?
Amidst all the myriad arrays of derivative, amateur content, who really cares? At some point, so much information is going to be on any number of public internets (remember, that means interconnected network) that the amount of traffic a particular content receives isn’t nearly as personally important as why you went to that area of an internet in the first place. Additionally, it will be up to you to determine whether transmedia content is accurate, full of shit, or somewhere happily in between.
I think the personal connection to new/transmedia sources and information is important in the future of art and culture in society. This personal connection weighs more on the individual decision than a decision based on familial or fraternal connection. Ivey and Tepper state three interrelated trends that underpin the “last big transformations in American culture.” Hopefully, these trends extend into the future (and furthermore, are really even trends to begin with). I believe only the first of Ivey and Tepper’s trends are correct. The first trend states, “Technology allows previously fleeting art and entertainment to be “captured” and thereby produced and distributed on a mass scale.” This is very true, and it’s especially true of amateur artists who may otherwise go completely unnoticed without internet communication tools.
The second trend is that “local and vernacular art and entertainment were eclipsed by a culture that was increasingly defined by the tastes of a national elite at Columbia Records, or Universal Studios, or nonprofit arts organizations.” Okay, well tell that to Gottfried Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, Christopher Poole, and Erik Martin, as well as the hundreds of millions of people in/directly associated with their work through The Pirate Bay, Reddit, and 4chan. On the surface this trend may seem like it is in fact a trend. However, when you actually look at the participatory exchange through these intermunities local and vernacular art is not eclipsed in the slightest.
The third trend Ivey and Tepper identify that I also disagree with is that amateurs at home are also overshadowed by creative professionals often associated with such aforementioned companies. I disagree with this mostly because of the same reasons that I disagree with their second ‘trend’. According to Ivey and Tepper, “Audiences were increasingly socialized to be passive consumers, awaiting their favorite radio broadcasts or sitting in darkened theaters and concert halls, applauding on cue.” First, there is nothing wrong with being a passive consumer. It is only an issue for humanity if, say, 99% of humanity becomes 100% like Orwell’s novel, 1984. In fact, it seems the opposite is happening for humanity. The rise of digital technologies certainly can lend to humanity becoming more like a potato than a sentient species. However, these new developments also lead to more and more people being able to create their own derivative work that others will pay good money to sit in a darkened theater and enjoy.
If the majority of people want to creative derivative work based on transmedia and new technologies, the majority of people are going to do it. If the law says the majority of people are criminals according to overly specific yet sadly convoluted precedents by creating this derivative work, in the United States the majority of people are going to do it anyway. (Immortal Technique is a lyricist [N.B.: also known as a rapper] who wrote [N.B.: yes, he is a rapper that writes rhymes from words formed by letters] something like if you go platinum that only means a million people are stupid. The song is called “Industrial Revolution” if you care to look it up. It’s easy to find with your Googlefu; to paraphrase, Immortal Technique advocates burning it off the #@$*!%& internet and bumping it outside.) If the majority of people are totally mistaken in this derivative drive into the future, at least hindsight is 20/20.
It’s up to each individual to navigate their own subjective route through the barrage of information in the present. Good luck; I can’t tell you what that looks like but maybe this will help: http://nyan.cat
Oh, and about that digital divide: What do you all think about “An Essay on the Principle of Population” published by Malthus in 1798 in relative relation to this problem? Also, what about the concept of “Surival of the Fittest” as articulated by Herbert Spencer after reading Darwin’s “On the Origin of the Species”? It seems to me that the central theses of these works at least figuratively apply to understanding future ramifications for the digital divide.
Call me old school, but I worry that the traditional ways will no longer be practiced in the future of the art world due to the transmedia world that we live in. Mass produced products have taken over our houses! Walk into a house and I bet you have seen the same poster somewhere before (probably your own home!) I think a major part of what constitutes as art is embedded in how that piece of art was made. A mass produced art piece obviously does not have the same prestige as the original, and a original song (no matter how much overkilled it is) is not comparable to a remix of the same song. In our current ways, we use technology to do everything and it makes art accessible to everyone wanting to create it, although in my opinion there is a piece of originality or organic craftsmenship missing. I am not saying that technology is a bad thing, but it makes things difficult to categorize what is actually art, what is a hobby, and what can be prestigiously world-reknown as oppose to just “famous” in a popular culture context.
At any rate, it will be interesting to see if there will be another chapter of politically driven artworks in our future. With the Occupy movement occupying our media and conscious environments, perhaps we will see the manifestation of the political and social awareness of our generation through art pieces that will go down in the history books! I would hope to see the grassroots approach to art rise again, what does that mean in the 21st century? I am not sure, but it won’t be the continuous remixes of the generous history.
It’s very difficult to define what’s the arts and culture going to be in the future. It depends on which area of the earth, what’s the aesthetic standard of that area, it also depends on how far the future. But one thing is for sure, transmedias will paly a more and more important role in art worlds, and cultural exchanges will become more and more frequently.
Nowadays, culture democracy provide full freedom to people to express themselves. The public could enjoy participating in and engaging with arts activities, to become participators and creators, not just spectators. When this phenomenon become a trend in the future, everyone can be an artist to use their own way to create unique art.
But, it does not mean the future will be a era of creating masterpieces. During the Renaissance, artists broke out creation enthusiasm and inspiration under a extreme religious and political oppression, they underwent a long time of hard work and sacrifice to acquire the essence of arts. Divine future aside, current arts is becoming more and more trend and casual. Many arts creation based on the spur of the moment, while the trend change with the fashion, things are updated very fast and will be washed out by time. In the vedio Everthing is a Remix, the author define remix to combine or edit existing material to produce something new. And the three videos did gave a lot of remix examples in our time. I think when all existing arts have been remixed, people will feel bored about what they create, so this art era will near the end and
the next real new art era will be coming.
However, history, include art, culture, politics, is in a spiral development. Things will back to origin after developing to a certain stage. Such as composing, after Baroque, classicism, romanticism and so on, composers lived in 20th century ‘feel bored’ with delightful melody and created atonal music to enjoy themselves. Undergoing exploration and struggling with themselves, Schoenberg himself, and more and more other later composers back to tonal music, the origin. The same to the art in the future, maybe after a long time exploration, people in the future will back to primitive arts creation rather than much more complex and abstract design.
Back to the origin of the initial question, what the future art and culture in the society will be? More accessible, more pluralism? I think the most important thing is what we are doing now, which will determine what’s the art going to be tomorrow.
I just want to add that because of transmedia remixing this exists: http://goo.gl/5z5uV
Do YOU want that to be the future of art and culture in society? XD
As Ivey and Tepper point out the idea the “creative ethos: They want to be creative in their lives, both at work and in their leisure time,” I hope to see this idea pushed further into how we relate to one another. Through the creative lens, using art as a vehicle, I hope to see people from across social differences engage with one another with an intention to hear each others stories and challenge their own perspectives. By harnessing the individualistic craving for art on a “micro” level, I believe we can begin to purposefully engage in dialogue around the core reasons why violence exists in our society. Through the use of transmedia, I hope to see this idea spread, but real understanding and empathy can only occur through personal interactions with others.
“There is art, and there is dialogue, he seems to be saying, and when they join hands in public, art is operationalized in the service of a civic agenda.” This forward thinking, as mentioned by Lacy, use of the arts as functional can be seen in the new fields of study that are just beginning to emerge, such as Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University: http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/peacebuildingarts/index.html . Another area where the rise in this practice is seen is in “Social Artistry” read more about it: http://pyeglobal.org/blog/2010/12/16/here-we-go/..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUDiAmaQ0Vw
Yes, Jonathan- I do. but ONLY that. i am for a movement to extreme simplicity in which people will no longer grapple with open ended questions. Instead we will, in a robotic unison, speak out that one singular answer for everything. prof: what is art and culture? students: longarmbikinieyeballhotdogdance. prof: yes, that is correct.
The future of art and culture in our society in an exciting thing. I believe that new transmedia tools are allowing us to create art and connect with people in ways we’ve never dreamed possible. So while the future may be unclear in many ways, it offers more possibilities than ever before to engage with others to a higher degree.
I was in New York City this summer studying the world of publishing. There was much discussion about the move from books to e-books and the changing dynamic of the publishing business model. I was particularly interested by one company that I encountered during my studies, Open Road Media: http://www.openroadmedia.com/
Open Road creates solely ebooks AND have a very interesting and new approach to marking books to the public. They use multimedia storytelling to promote the authors behind the ebooks they sell. Their film crew travels to the home town of a published author and spends a few days with them. They pick out interesting or unusual facts about the writer and create beautiful and powerful pieces which are meant to connect readers to the author behind the works in an intimate way.
Open Road Media, and similar companies, intrigue me because I am reminded that the future of art in our society is at a very interesting place right now that welcomes new ways of thinking. We are surrounded by new mediums that allow us to both create art in news ways and PROMOTE art in news ways.
Further, many peoples’ posts included the mention of participatory media as being on the rise and a key part of the future of art in our society. I think that in addition to this being true, media is also creating a more “behind the scenes” opportunities for individuals interested in the arts. As my Open Road Media example demonstrates, readers are able to step inside the world of their favorite authors in a manner they’ve never been able to before. Other arts organizations do similar things….giving the attendee, audience, etc. a unique look at the art world they are observing. As future arts administrators, these modern approaches to managing and promoting arts will more definitely lead us to some interesting projects and work opportunities.
Haha, my broader point is that humanity can harness the technology so that we do not have one foot on a banana peel with the other in the dark ages.
I think as we move forward arts and culture are going to become even more important. I know that we have a tendency to view the future as a bleak, hostile, extremely technological disutopia but I actually see it the other way around. I think we will be more motivated to share and experience the arts especially as it will only become easier in our time to do so. With advanced technology we will have better methods of preserving art and culture and understanding and sharing these things with other people around the world. I think transmedia will open up doors to new types of arts and performances that we can hardly even imagine yet. It has been so hard to preserve our history in the past and I think as it becomes easier we will focus more on that and understanding other cultures. I think we will move towards blending art forms and understandings and through the arts find common ground between ourselves and others. I think we will also become more accessible to all people in the future, with advancements in communication and technology and that will create a greater and stronger environment for the arts to become important.