What do you imagine the future of art and culture to be?
How can art and culture participation sustain society in this future?
How might transmedia experience/materials figure into this future?
The future of art and culture will be complicated. So many aspects of art are changing, both for good and for bad. New types of art are being created and become appreciated by wider audiences on a daily basis. This means that more people can be involved in the creation of art, and previously disregarded genres of art are being revisited. But, at the same time, more traditional types of art and the institutions that support and show them are struggling. Though participation is growing in certain areas (online viewing of art and public art), museums, ballets, operas, and other “traditional” institutions are having trouble getting people through their doors. They need to find new ways to connect with these new and younger audiences that may see them as staid.
To sustain participation artists, and art institutions need both be open to new genres of art and to find new ways to reach their audiences. The development of various types of transmedia would help this process immensely. If a museum can advertise their space and art on many different types of technologies, more people would see and possibly be interested. The various platforms of social media have helped with this. LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) has recently set up a Snap Chat account. They send out very witty and hilarious snaps (pictures with captions) almost daily. This is reaching a younger and more tech savvy audience. I have even added LACMA to my account and plan on visiting the museum next time I am in LA. This particular example reaches even more levels of transmedia as stories about the LACMA Snap Chat account have been featured on Buzzfeed and other news sites.
Art institutions, aestheticians, and those in the more “traditional” and “high art” sectors also need to be open to new types of art. Aesthetics (as discussed much in class previously) can be quite restrictive, and the older ways of looking at and judging art are changing or being outmoded. People can choose for themselves what art is, and what art can be considered “good.” Things are changing in the world of aesthetics with more people having access to all types of art via the internet.
I think that transmedia, and more use of technology in general, will be the way that art and culture will find a way to stay relevant and to keep participation numbers up, and sustain themselves into the future.