Back in 2014, I published a list of cultural contrasts that I was noticing, and along the way launched a new lexicon that described how the world seemed to be sliding from one paradigm into another.
I wasn’t sure what to call it this sensation, or my reaction to it, only that I felt the ground moving beneath my feet at an ever accelerating rate. Nevertheless, I batched this and and a few related blog entries under the searchable tag: Decoding the Now.
The idea was -and I think continues to be– simple: how to make sense of the present in light of one's past lived experience? It occurred to me that sometimes the most revealing thing we can do is hold up a pair of words and watch how one has displaced the other. Not because the old word has disappeared, but because the new one tells us how power, technology, culture, and identity are being reorganized in our lives.
I’ve revisited that 2014 list, trimmed it, updated it, and added new entries that reflect the accelerations of the 2020s. Together, they form what I’m presently calling:
The Critical Noise Dictionary of Shifts (2025 Edition)
Media & Meaning
Book → Interface
Album → Playlist
Story → Message
Theme → Meme
Mythology → Technology
Poetry → Code
Word → Emoji
Popular → Viral
Broadcast → Stream
News → Trend
Observation → Conversation
Truth → Narrative
Identity & Work
Job → Gig
Professional → Gig Worker
Salary → Fee
Talent → Resources
Audience → User
Citizen → Stakeholder
Office Worker → Digital Nomad
Alone → Connected
Family → Friends
Power & Politics
National → Global
Statesman → Clown
Assumption → Data
Expert → Consensus
Rules → Heuristics
CIA → NSA
NATO → SINO
Democracy → Populism
Markets → Monopolies
Technology & Systems
Analog → Digital
Hardware → Software
Tool → App
Paper → Pixel
Desk → Cloud
System → Matrix
Linear → Agile
Store → Site
Update → Iterate
Publication → Iteration
Research → Prompt
Rules of the road → Terms and Conditions
Economy & Exchange
Customer → Adopter
Company → Platform
Own → Subscribe
Sell → Monetize (Attention)
Proprietary → Transparent
Product → Process
Solution → Option
Launch → Release
Loyalty → Like
Culture & Expression
Collage → Mashup
Compose → Sample
Musician → DJ
In Tune → Autotune
Authentic → Adobe
Daydream → Touch Screen
Institution → Network
Watch → Record
Tune In → Log In
Society & Belonging
Cliques → Tribes
Organize → (Viral) Swarm
Isolated → Affiliated
Suburb → City
Office → Remote
Offshore → Locavore
Public Domain → Open Source
Collaborate → Crowdsource
Unify → Occupy
New 2025 Inserts (Acceleration of the Shift)
Privacy → Surveillance
Fact → Feed
Influence → Algorithm
Nation-State → Network-State
Human+Human → Human+AI
Education → Content
This list is not exhaustive. It’s a living document, a sketch of how the 20th century became the 21st, and how the 21st keeps mutating under our feet.
If the 2014 version was about sensing a coming wave, this 2025 edition is about realizing we’re already swimming in it, and the real question is how not to drown. I hope this list can serve as a flotation device, as it has for me in the simple act of creating it.
It is a question that is not unlike one I heard from a semiotician who
in 2011, inquired in an online forum we both inhabited, “Why is modern art so boring?"(Decoding the Now)
The BBC article is well worth the read, however, one fact I find slightly irritable is the continued reference of a certain Bedford Ceramic Urinal as "Marcel Duchamp's artwork "Fountain".
If you're not familiar with the story, Duchamp signed a urinal with a nom d'art ("R.Mutt") and then submitted it for a group show as his own work. Newly titled 'Fountain', the work was rejected by the committee, but today it lives on as 'a major landmark in 20th-century art'.
Some of you are no doubt thinking, 'bullsh*t', while some of you are thinking, 'well, of course it is'. My own opinion accommodates both perceptions as valid.
No doubt, it is someone’s urinal, as it was certainly commissioned, designed and manufactured by one or several real human beings some hundred hears ago. Let this fact resonate a moment, because once you do, it becomes plainly evident that the fact that Duchamp signed the object does not make it his object, except, perhaps, to those who regard creation and appropriation or re-contexualization with an intellectually weighted form of equivalency.
And yet that's exactly what countless art critics and historians have done for the last century -allowed a man who signed his name to another artist's work take full credit for that work.
If Duchamp may be called a genius, he is a genius akin to P.T. Barnum, another famous huckster who often created nothing and became celebrated for it.
Others may disagree but I can never believe that the man who draws a moustache on the Mona Lisa is as fully a talent as the man who painted the Mona Lisa, no matter how amusing or provoking the result.
Nevertheless, Duchamp turns out to be a man ahead of his time, and in this regard a predecessor to Warhol. But Andy was also actually was an artist, albeit one acutely aware of and obsessed with both industrial design and popular culture.
And Andy, of course, pulled the same stunt with 'his' Brillo Boxes as Duchamp did with 'Fountain' –identified another person's design as art, and then signed his own name to the thing.
If nothing else, we can say that Duchamp was pre-Kardashian, if we may suggest such a thing is a valid concept. But of course we can, because with 'Fountain', Duchamp showed us that all one needed to call ownership out of absence was simply to indicate a relational concept between one's self and another object.
But here is the thing: if the urinal is indeed the work of art that Duchamp says it is, –and I think it is–, then the fact that Duchamp tagged it does not make him the artist, or even an artist. If we are generous, we might identify him as a curator with a puckish sense of humor, and not a vandal who defaced and possibly stolen a urinal.
To believe and argue otherwise is to suggest that bridges, tunnels, trains and walls might be identified by any graffiti artist who scrawls his or her handle on it, rather than, you know, the actual architect.
Do we really believe that artistry is all in the concept, and that original execution is so meaningless that it has no contemporary value?
Okay, well, so, as it happens, I will be in London this spring, kindly note that upon my departure the London Bridge shall thereafter be known as 'The Terry O’Gara Bridge', as I shall be painting my name upon the thing before leaving.
Hey, acrylic makes it real!
All joking aside, isn't there anyone who will stand up for the real artist who created 'Fountain’?
No, not Duchamp, he was just a prankster and a tagger with a magic marker.
Perhaps, a hundred long years later, we should stop laughing, –no, I mean really stop laughing– and instead, we might inquire who is the actual designer of the object?
To date, his or her or their name appears to be lost to history, but I suspect that a determined journalist might consult the historical archives belonging to one Bedford Ceramic Urinal Manufacturer and thereby rectify a now century-old wrong.
20th Century → 21st Century
Industrial Age → Information Age
Book → Interface
Actify → Gamify
Album → Playlist
Alone → Connected
Analog → Digital
Art → Design
Artist → Curator
Audience → User
Authentic → Adobe
Assumption → Data
Big → Nimble
Boomer → Millennial
Broadcast → Dialogue
CIA → NSA
Cliques → Tribes
Collaborate → Crowdsource
Collage → Mashup
Compose → Sample
Construct → Disrupt
Cryptic → Encrypted
Customer → Client
Creative → Optimized
Daydream → Touch Screen
Desk → Cloud
Explanation → Medication
Expert → Consensus
Factory → Open Office
Family → Friends
Field → Console
Fix → Hack
Governance→ Politics
GRIT → STEM
Guru → Ninja
Hard Rock → Soft Synth
Hardware → Software
Harvard → Stanford
Hippodrome → Headphone
In Tune → Autotune
Institution → Network
Isolated → Affiliated
Inventor → Innovator
Job → Gig
Launch → Release
License → Acquire
Linear → Agile
Long Form → Long Tail
Loyalty → Like
Maintain → Sustain
Make → Develop
March → Tweet
Method → Palette
Mr. → @
Musician → DJ
Mythology → Technology
National → Global
NATO → SINO
News → Trend
Observation → Conversation
Office → Café
Offshore → Locavore
Organize → Self Organize
Outside → Inside
Own → License
Paper → Pixel
Papyrus → Scroll
Plan → Prototype
Play → Prepare
Poetry → Code
Popular → Viral
Portable → Wearable
Post Office → Post Comment
Private → Promoted
Procreate → Recreate
Producer → Facilitator
Product → Process
Professional → Amateur
Proprietary →Transparent
Performance → Performant
Public Domain → Open Source
Publish→ Post
Quote → Retweet
Rules → Heuristics
Sage → Wiki
Salary → Fee
Sell → Share
Sell Out → Opt In
Share → Adopt
Solution → Option
Stable → Mobile
Store → Site
Story → Message
Suburb → City
System → Matrix
Talent → Brand
Talk → Text
TV → Phone
Theme → Meme
Third Word → Third Place
Tool → App
Tune In → Log On
Turn On → Chill Out
Unify → Occupy
Update → Iterate
Watch → Record
Word → Glyph
Zeitgeist → Swarm
Has any popular artist or band in the new millennium mattered any more than Pussy Riot?
From the beginning, the members of Pussy Riot risked subverting their
political message with same flashmob tactics and theatricalized sexuality that they employed to gain attention in the first place.
That group members freely combine Realpolitik and Porn within and beyond the conceptual limits of the Pussy Riot
project also suggests the band is not simply an act, but a lifestyle bent on disrupting culture by lobbing incendiary cognitive dissonance devices directly into the public consciousness.
For one, their balaclavas resemble as much
bondage hoods as ski masks; for another, one group member has been
reported as being an orgy participant; and yet another alleged member of the collective,
participating in a non-Pussy performance piece, if we can call it that, stuffed a frozen chicken
into her vagina.
The imaginary mental picture I hold of that performance resembles Caesar van Everdingen's 'Woman Playing a Cittern' made over by Andy Warhol and presented by the Symbionese Liberation Army Puppet Theater Company: at turns funny, repulsive, beautiful, titillating, shocking and despicable.
Of course, some decent folk will resist the notion that a woman with a frozen chicken in her vagina
is capable of serious intellectual energy, even if at the same time they ably accept a government whose members are also full of something, and yet also still capable of determining serious matters. After all, somebody is buying dildos in Washington, D.C. and Westminster.
One might reasonably argue that porn is never an appropriate tool for the
feminists' arsenal, however, the chicken action is not without
precedent. For many, 'How to Snatch a Chicken' is fairly reminisce of a another
classic and similarly foodcentric act of defiance: 'The Return of the Chocolate-smeared Woman', by American performance artist, Karen Finely.
In this 1994 piece, that artist smeared her naked body with chocolate with the intention that the act be considered a rebuttal against
the U.S. Government's legal threat to impose restrictions on grants for
'indecent art', and specifically her own work (National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley). And as with Pussy Riot's defense against the Russian government, Ms. Finely also lost her case.
She was, however, was awarded a Ms. magazine Woman of the Year award; and today, Finely teaches at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
So, it
may be that long after their jail sentences fade from the press and public memory, that academic appointments and
mainstream professional acceptance await the members of Pussy Riot. And
if and when that time comes, it may be your children that they arm with their ideas
and ideals, the ideas and ideals necessary to question authority where and when others dare
not.
But don't be alarmed, it is, actually, a pro-democracy message that both Finley and Pussy Riot deliver.
Suffice to say that that there are many who though otherwise sympathetic to Pussy
Riot's message,
they simply find the group's tactics too offensive or annoying to give their political motivations any thought or credence.
Even among Pussy Riot's activist fans, many misinterpret the group's message. Some project their own politics into the
Pussy Riot agenda; others have simply leveraged the Pussy Riot
situation and look for their own personal cause. But no wonder why! Pussy Riot's performance at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, and the group member's subsequent persecution presents a successful paradigm to arts activists.
"Every
day, more people understand that if the system is attacking three young
women who performed in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for thirty
seconds with such vehemence, it only means that this system fears the
truth, sincerity, and straightforwardness we represent."
She also explained that the lyric, 'Holy shit', was not meant as a
blasphemous attack on the church or the religion, but merely represented 'our
evaluation of the situation in the country'.
Certainly, these statements were presented only at the service of their defense, however, because they greatly undervalue the impact of the group's punk
prayer. If 'Mother of God, Drive Putin Out' were merely a peaceful song, the
women would have failed in their
mission. But they did not fail. By the standards by which dissident art
is measured, they succeeded and succeeded wildly.
Not to mention that
even when presented as pure entertainment, theater is never innocent.
And certainly, no one hijacks a church alter and says or sings "Holy
shit, shit, Lord's shit!" who
isn’t trying to shock and provoke a strong reaction.
Either way, that
Pussy Riot's musical actions in the Cathedral might be a justified
measure against a tyrannical state will certainly be a subject of never
ending debate, which means that Pussy Riot's punk prayer will to continue to resonate in the public
consciousness for many years to come.
Interestingly,
Pussy Riot’s punk prayer continues to agitate and inspire. It also
lends itself to the reflection and analysis of other cultures and
societies well beyond the Russian Federation. That is, Pussy Riot is a
lens with which we can use to examine any tier of any society. We can
ask ourselves, where ever we live in the world: 'What does Pussy Riot
say about Thailand?' or 'What does Pussy Riot say about America?, for
instance. Which is why, when we do tilt that lens to the west, one can't
help but notice that forty years
after punk rock's inception:
• It’s 'girls' who demonstrate that the spirit of rock is not
dead, though it may very well appear to be at times in places like London or
New York, or anywhere, actually, where music is only made to be licensed for a commercial or otherwise lives to serve as a
soundtrack for a a spin upon a treadmill or around a shopping mall.
• It’s 'girls' who emerge as freedom fighters and who set the unequivocal standard for arts
activism.
•
And it’s 'girls',
again, who managed to rattle the Kremlin; and it's 'girls' who now
suffer harsh legal consequences while one can simultaneously imagine a
billion men that simply prefer to watch
the whole thing play out on their smartphones and digital tablets.
In
other words, how or whether Pussy Riot's punk prayer changes anything
in Russia is perhaps not even the correct question. For many people, the
more relevant question is: 'How has Pussy Riot changed me?'
And
also, Pussy
Riot’s rail against patriarchy no doubt will survive as a sign of the
times, and not just as a bit of music history but as a symbol of the
emerging power of women in the 21st Century. For, indeed, women can be
seen to be taking an increasing
lead in ideas, inspiration, cultural advancement and political
influence, and they are doing so all over the world, and at all levels
of
society.
Besides Pussy Riot, other notable examples of this shift can be exemplified by Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!; Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton; Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani educational activist, who survived an attempt on her life by the Taliban; Italian particle physicist, Fabiola Gianotti, who is said to lead the largest scientific experiment in the world at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland; and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia who is oft quoted for telling a group of Harvard students, "If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough."
Certainly, the women of Pussy Riot have also made a similar achievement in the area of Arts Activism and Culture.
But maybe you think Pussy Riot’s punk prayer is just Riot grrrl
styled punk rock or maybe
you think it sounds like Beastie Boy styled rap; or maybe you think that
it’s not music at all – just a bunch of yelling and angry noise. It all
depends on where you stand aesthetically and philosophically.
But while it might sound like the sound of something dying to you, it's
also the
sound of something being born; and that something is the future itself.
Naturally, one can't help but make comparisons with controversial performers. Neither Madonna nor Sinead O'Connor,
for instance, are strangers
to provocation. However, they were already global superstars when their
offending actions
threatened to derail their careers. In contrast, Pussy Riot's illegal
in-church protest was actually the thing that transformed this theretofore
little known arts collective into a worldwide punk rock phenomenon.
Similarly, the Sex Pistols railed against 'the Queen and
her fascist regime,' as well as their record label, EMI, but the motivation
behind those efforts is debatable given the band’s parallel efforts to sell
records and gain celebrity.
Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, U2,
and many others, too, pen songs of protest, but like the Sex Pistols,
their tunes are as much sentiments of social consciousness as they are
product.
Interestingly, it may also be that not since Kabuki styled, fire breathing, glam band Kiss launched their act in the mid seventies, that any single rock group has achieved such wide interest largely based on signification codes,
i.e. Pussy Riot's 'look' is as much vehicle for their ideas as the
lyric to their punk prayer. As a result, the band's semiotic strategy
actually makes the music irrelevant to one's appreciation of the group.
As it should be: for commercial groups all activities are meant to
create a funnel towards product; but in the case of Pussy Riot, the
music is a conduit for regime change.
In this regard, the women of Pussy Riot appear to be first to concept
with a new breed of 21st Century performer and change agent: The Semantic Terrorist; that is, an agitprop art bomber with the marketing acumen of a brand strategist but who
doesn't give a sh*t about selling you anything.
Indeed, it's likely that we'll see and hear from other Semantic Terrorists as others rise and join in the chorus of the Great
Connected Global Disruption that defines our era.
But what exactly do we find so captivating about the Semantic
Terrorist?
In a world
where advertisers are increasingly replacing record labels as ministers
of culture; when economies are crumbling under the weight of outdated
precepts; when politicians think it more expedient to silence the voices
of the weak, and protect the interests of the powerful; the women of
Pussy Riot serve to remind us that free of corporate sponsorship, blind
nationalism or overfatigued groupthink, a dissident artist can get on
with the business of attempting to topple a government, jail time and
trendy miniskirts, not withstanding.
Is it just me or has any one else noticed that we seem to have rather oddly arrived at moment in our information dense and digitally democratic western culture that we are collectively more interested in decoding our selves than coding ourselves, than we ever have been. Does this sort of thing happen with ever major change in information distribution channels?
Either way, we see how some things which are designed may not be received as their designer/s intended. Some things are simply created for the pleasure of the designer, or for the amusement of audiences. And some things which are not designed appear as though they are. And you and I looking at the same thing might not see the same thing at all, or agree to its meaning, even if we did.
DECODING THE NOW
Cultural movements throughout history, and all the way up to the 20th Century, were usually driven by artists and their patrons. But we now live in the age of the mash up, and this form of expression is a curatorial art form. Nobody really wants to be an artist anymore; more often than not, most people are finding great satisfaction mining, deconstructing and re-contextualizing prior art into comparative expressions. One might argue that this is the basis of all genre, but convention has never before been mistaken with wholesale sampling on such a wide scale.
This begs another question: Can natural objects formed by purely physical processes of natural phenomena ever be considered art? It's easy to think so when we use an Amethyst Geode for a centerpiece. But I think 'Art' is a human construct, and therefore such things as rocks and natural tree formations are not in an of themselves art, until they are framed as such.
That is, natural objects only become art once we frame them within a construct. So, the tree which no one hears when it falls in the forest is neither heard nor is it art, but its recorded sound is, and certainly, if we take that tree and preserve it in a specific identifiable space, as we might do in designing a landscape, it is.
CONVENTION IS CULTURE
I also sometimes think of ART as that which is created for the pleasure of the designer, and which by happenstance may win a larger audience. And I sometimes think of ENTERTAINMENT as that which is created for the pleasure of an audience, and which by happenstance might eventually inure pride from its creator.
So, some observe the world, for instance, and see intentional design; others observe and see it as the product of random choices. But whether we are living on a planet with purpose or a Rube Goldberg machine of vast scale, 'the world' and the objects in it convey only that meaning which is read into it, and that which is read into is always the result of a common cultural agreement, whether by pilgrims or physicists, each party agreeing to a different set of commonly accepted conventions.
Which is to say, the mind attempts to make sense out of things, even when there is no connection. And it is this capacity that insures when no connection exists, we will always make one.
And since their are billions of us, each with his or her own opinion, a variety of meanings will necessarily overlap, and the parties to those meanings will occasionally rise to conflict in order to defend an idea or an ideal.
This might create a bitter divide between Evolutionists and Evangelicals, but as it happens, it also makes for inspired Art.
The Critical Noise 2011 Sound of the Year is: The Global Cry for Freedom and Fairness
You have a dream. You have a voice. Will the world hear it? Or will you suffer in silence?
From Arab Spring to American Autumn, the meek, the poor, the downtrodden, have used the media in a way once reserved for those with access to elite connections and expensive broadcast channels: as both a megaphone and a weapon. And in so doing, they may or may not have won relief from daily tyranny, but they have increased global awareness of unjust governments and unfair markets.
They have been heard.
People of modest means have found strength in unity, and in so doing, have thrust themselves upon the world's stage, often eluding velvet ropes and manacles along the way. But many have also been arrested or died tragic deaths.
They will not disappear. They will not die in vain.
This chorus of discontent has compelled the powerful to listen, and the effect has caused nothing less than a tectonic shift of the global political and economic paradigm.
Indeed, tremors can still be felt. Without a doubt, they will resonate for years to come.
But although the cries of any given group of individuals were not always in unison, they were always identifiable as a collective appeal for Human Rights and dignity –for equal opportunity and a democratic ethos – to be distinguished from the law of the jungle and a sometimes predatory economic system that has for far too long passed as politics and business as usual.
Therefore:
The Critical Noise blog congratulates those who have won their freedom; and wishes continued support for those still fighting for their dreams (and as often our own); and extends our prayers to all who have summoned the courage to add a voice to what has been both a communal and a transnational chorus of voices using the power of sound and media to change the world.
The Critical Noise Sound of the Year goes to that sound source, event, entity, happening or concept which so effectively produces wide response and reaction, whether intentional or not, such that it stirs collective emotion, inspires discussion, incites action, or otherwise lends itself to cultural analysis and resonates across the globe.
The word 'Ecotone' is a real word, and although it incorporates the syllable 'tone', it has nothing to do with music. If we examine the etymology of the word, the 'tone' in this case is derived from 'tonos', meaning 'tension', and an ecotone represents a place where ecologies are in tension, such as transition areas between two adjacent but different plant communities.
It strikes me that global culture in its entirety represents an ecotone of some great magnitude, where communities are not simply in tension, but actively colliding and combining, –sometimes resulting in homogenization, and sometimes resulting in evolution of another sort.
Writer Thomas L. Friedman has famously suggested that as a result of both globalization and technology, 'The World is Flat'. If it is, then the map is drawn with many overlapping Venn Diagrams, and you and I sit at the very center where all circles overlap around a power outlet, and where we can plug in the plethora of devices we carry with us use to navigate this new turbulent terrain.
It is turbulent because we have not quite fully moved from one century to another, nor have have yet fully adapted to these new tools at our disposal. But as such, we stand at the cusp of another great adventure, and all we need to do is not let ourselves get bogged down in remixing past works when absolutely original things are still to be conceived, whether with rubber bands and paperclips, or HTML, CSS and Object Oriented Programming.
And it may very well be that new forms will yet emerge from traditional methods and old, well worn tools.
In this regard, I like to think the world is actually Bb. What I mean by this is that despite tectonic technological shifts, I like to think that there are still many new and innovative works to be composed on piano, kalimba or yanqin, and novel gestures to be communicated by ballet or tap dance, for instance. A healthy human body does not require an upgrade. The violin can't be improved upon, nor the paint brush, and there is not a single machine on the planet that will ever weave the kind of magic that a mere child can conjure with smile.
The complexity and depth we feel or acquire from imperfect artistic works and executions can not be improved upon by computer assisted creation and precision processes. You can fix and remix, but none of those tricks give you quite same kick as human expression, although to be fair, a mouse click is also a form of human expression, and indeed, it may be the defining gesture of our time.
Either way, whether made from twigs or pixels, clay or light, or our own bodies and voices, that regardless of result, Process will always be exciting to us. As artists we revel in the act of creation; as spectators we enjoy learning how our favorite artists work.
It's wonderful, too, that Technology now allows those without training or technique to express themselves in ways that once required a high degree of skill. The only danger here is that a young person might think that just because they don't need to master a craft in order to express themselves, that they shouldn't. Not all value derived from making music, however, comes from making music. If that's all you do, then you miss out on something absolutely necessary to real artistry – how making music makes you.
Speaking or spectators, if audiences appear collectively blasé, and they frequently do, then maybe we might use the new communication tools at our disposal to 'mashup' the audience with our own lives. In this way we invite them into a mutually shared experience. We witness a fair bit of that already, and naturally I think that is a good way to go.
In the meantime, it is also fair to ask if it is art that is boring or the audience that is bored? Is someone disinterested because of external or internal factors?
Boredom, however, is relative to exposure to repeated stimulus.
I recall how as a little boy arriving in the United States after having spent great swaths of my childhood without television. While others complained about Television commercials, I found even the most poorly made advertisements deeply entertaining. Similarly, we have, in the last twenty years, all assimilated so many new technologies that our brains now apparently demand an accelerated diet of novel stimuli on a regular basis, lest life, for a moment, feels dull. Is there a day when some years from now we say, 'there's nothing interesting on the Internet?'
But hasn't that happened already?
For all the positives, it also strikes me as a kind of sad atrophy of our cognitive ability to appreciate the single frame, a single object, a still life, a captured moment, whether in Tempera, stone, vinyl, sand, glass, clay or even as a digital media file.
Racing through an online gallery so that a thousand images dance by like a single work of stop motion animation may seem an increasingly comfortable way to absorb visual information, but I think in order to deeply appreciate a single, static work of art, one must pause and linger, for there is another dimension at play in the sensory reception of art.
And that is the notion of Time. Giving a single work our attention and our time can mean the difference between real experience and mere observation, not to mention depth of experience is measured in both Time and Feeling.
So, it may be that if we still hope to sustain an interest in what it means to be human, then one might actually have to stop the feed, break the screen and step back through the shattered shards of so-called social media, if only to revel for a faintly reminiscent moment of what it means to be present in the proximity of visceral, physical, human expression –and to feel again how thrilling Art is, that it might even transform your life, –not if you simply let it, but if you actively engage in the acquisition of knowledge and skills necessary to your own creative understanding and expression.
Our music is composed of samples; our images crafted from consolidated clip art, and our movies from stories that have been told draw from a well of tired tropes and conventions. So, we might as well ask ourselves how to tell the difference between Origination, Derivation, Recontexualization and Plagiarism, and no better way to exemplify these concepts than by framing the modern mashup as a metaphor suitable to representing the modern art process as it applies to all platforms.
The mashup is sometimes presented as synonymous with collage, but in fact the two concepts differ in intention and produced effect. Collages ala Rauschenberg are created from deconstructed or found elements, which once combined do not for the most part bring attention to their source/s, but rather present the viewer with a new image, much the same way a child is not a copy of his or her parents, but a synthesis and then also, something new, as this work, untitled "combine," (1963) so adeptly illustrates:
Whereas the mashup is not really born of synthesized concepts, but rather any given mashup represents a recontextualization of pre-exisiting concepts within a single 'frame'. It's purpose is not so much to advance, but to reflect; not to break down beyond recognition and recombine into a new form/s, but to layer existing elements in a manner that comparison is forced. The mashup itself does not present itself as something new. But its curator/creator hopes it will inspire new thinking.
As it happens, Rauschenberg was also a trickster and often revealed a sublime conceptual side to his craft, which doesn't necessarily support my argument, but it's a worthwhile look if you haven't seen it before:
Robert Rauschenberg - Erased De Kooning
It may be that one day we think of Rauschenberg not as a prominent 20th Century American artist, but as the Father of 21st Century Art.
TO FRANKENSTEIN OR RE-ALIGN, THAT IS THE QUESTION
If you accept my premise, mashups are always derivative by definition, as they are by nature always constructed from pre-existing works, be they text, graphics, audio, video, animation, etc. But it would be hard to argue that this work, 'Blue Nudes' by Henri Matisse (1952) is derivative (except of the life model on which it is based). Though it is a collage, it is not a mashup. Like J.S. Bach or Max Martin, BLUE NUDES represents an original expression made manifest.
It's easy to think mashup is a synonym for collage, but in fact the two concepts differ in produced effect. Collages ala Rauschenberg are created from deconstructed or found elements, which once combined do not for the most part bring attention to their source/s, but rather present the viewer with a new image. Whereas the mashup's purpose is often just the opposite, not to combine beyond identification, but to layer in a manner that comparison is forced.
Collages are Frankenstined together from recycled bits of other works, and then given a new life. Mashups, on the other hand, represent not reanimation but a realignment of the original corpses, wheatpasted up on the wall and one laying or metaphorically 'beatmatched' next to the other, with the purpose of illumination. Conceptual art was always interesting but was it ever exciting?
Whereas the traditional artist would, say, sculpt oolitic limestone into The Venus of Willendorf, the modern artist takes the The Venus of Willendorf, positions her next to an Enoch Bolles Pin Up, and then sign his name to the composite image:
Venus Versus Venus, by Terry O'Gara (2011)
BROOKLYN, BERLIN, BICYCLES AND BETA
If we are already familiar with the statue and the pin up, then the recontextualization may be interesting, strike us as novel, and even be something we Twitter about, and it may even be art – but it is not art in the way we have long considered it. But in our brave new world, whether it is, or isn't art is actually besides the point, because the point of the thing is not to be judged as a work of art, but as a lens on our personal relationship with the culture, to demonstrate a new way of seeing, or hearing, or sensing in any capacity. See, the thing itself is incidental. All the value is loaded in the idea. And if you find it instantly forgettable, it's because ideas by themselves are like balloons: pretty, color, things, that eventually lose gas if they aren't first popped by the next new thing.
But is it okay to appropriate other people's works of art?
No, not without credit, but then it doesn't really matter, actually, because everyone is doing it. The digital medium has democratized art, and the most popular mode of expression is remixing other people's yellow-around-the edges objects into our own cutting edge, cut and paste 'new' ideas.
See, we are not simply citizens anymore, bound by the rigid rights and responsibilities of the state, we are something more than that. We are DJs.
–With the immediate result being an Internet powered global explosion of 20th Century memes into 21st Century culture. It begs the question: if we are so immersed in the past, then are we actually living in the present? The effect from all this stimulation is titillating, that's why we tweet each new trending fact, not because we think no one else reads the New York Times or the Daily Mail, but rather to make it clear to everyone else plugged into the zeitgeist, (all together now) "Look, my brain is infected, too!"
And it's also a bit like spending hours and hours learning how to manipulate a video game? Sure, maybe you are learning a new skill set that will be useful when you have to navigate your X-wing fighter at light speed to find just the right position to take out a Deathstar and save mankind, or maybe it's just a huge waste of time? Or maybe you've spent so much time taking out Deathstars that simply standing still in order to appreciate someone's subtle application of dirt on canvas, knife to wood, chisel to stone, etc –it all lacks an bit of iThrill that you now require to enjoy anything? It's a possibility, yes?
Even otherwise young and healthy Brooklyn based digerati, though their thumbs appear to text in the 21st Century, their brains remain soaked in 20th Century popisms. Will it take another generation before we can begin living in the future? In fact, it may be more accurate to say that our future is not in nineteen year olds or even nine year olds but in nine month olds.
Imagine then how it feels to be over forty and suddenly realize that not only have you been living in The Matrix all this time, but that you're actually the BETA version.
In real life, however, you hit forty, and realize that's what your twenties were –beta. Only today, it may be that our entire culture is twentysomething (in nation years).
President John F. Kennedy is noted for declaring in a 1963 speech that "Ich bin ein Berliner". Except that today, in 2011, he might well have declared, "We are all 25."
The proof is in the tweets.
HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A COLLAGE AND A MASHUP
With Art, one dose can last a lifetime. It's like being inoculated from stupidity, but of course, it doesn't always work. Consider for instance how smart you usually are, and then consider the hot laptop resting on your lap.
Granted the line between mashup and collage is as fine as the one between medication and meditation, especially in the areas of graffiti, remixes and digital photo manipulation, all three of which are exercising tidal forces on our culture. But for the purposes of this discussion, mashups deconstruct; their aim to direct viewers to compare and contrast, the medium is not so much paint or pixels but context.
Collages, on the other hand, combine and construct, rendering source material obscure or irrelevant. Rauschenberg's Riding Bikes (1998) simply posits two bicycles side by side, but the effect is unique in every way imaginable, so much so that it we easily forget that we are looking at bikes.
Mashups shout: 'Look at this!'
Collages, ask: 'What am I looking at?'
In direct contrast, consider this next video, apparently produced for the sole purpose of comparing and contrasting one rock band's music and hairstyle with another rock band's music and hairstyle:
The Final Teen Spirit Mashup (Nirvana vs Europe) by Wax Audio
But of course, we enjoy layered media, don't we. A symphony, for instance, might be composed of a simple melody, but arranged for an orchestra, it demonstrates one pinnacle of human intellect. What's different today is that much music in the past was the construction of one mind. whereas today, layered mashups find their final form as the result of a division of labor. This activity, in and of itself, is not new in the commercial arts, but it represents a dynamic new trend for the fine arts.
My immediate inclination is to say that either Jeffery Koons or Damien Hirst (who are both known to work with teams) initiated this trend, though I know the process goes back centuries, and possibly millennia. It is curious to note that at least one thing we learn from Hirst, Koons and even DJs spinning wax in Ibiza, is that when art is presented as the effort of many, whether crowd sourced, remixed or mashedup, the originating or 'actual' artist/s themselves are relegated towards increasing obscurity, because the final work is said to belong to the curator/creator. The Physical Impossibility of a flower from a Balloon by Terry O'Gara (2011)
DERIVATIONS VS ORIGINATIONS
Contrast again mashups (of any medium) with traditional art. I don't mean pre-Impressionist works. Traditional art, for our purposes is simply that which is born from unique, recombinant conceptual material. In the creation of traditional art, the artist's progeny grows to maturation from a mutated meme into a wholly original work.
And sometimes, a meme is not even involved, and we are presented with the artistic treasure of a true soul diver who has descended into his or her psyche and returns from pituitary depths with archetypal treasure. And in this category we will also include the ocular seer who simply, but also superbly, captures wisps of our external world and presents them in a way that pleases the senses and strikes our fancy.
But here we are: we live smack in the middle of an age when Derivations have proven more popular to those who can afford nifty new media than 'Originations'.
It's as though it's not enough that something may be new or unique or original, or even simply decorative. What we're really interested in, is a Celebrity Deathmatch between competing ideas. And make no mistake, while many of us are at least delighted by the expression of ideas, others are just in it for the fight.
DIGITAL DADAISM
This Digital Dadaism reminds me also of Duchamp's 'Readymades'. For some, Duchamp's Fountain (1917) "is the most influential work of art of the twentieth century".
Whether it is or isn't, it's interesting to note that a man named Duchamp created nothing and became celebrated for it, and if that doesn't characterize our age, what does?
His genius, if you will, was not in the creation of a new object but in its 'recontextualization'. Or as it has been argued: What makes Duchamp an artist and the urinal his creation is that he "created a new thought for that object."
Yet, if the urinal is a work of art (I think it is), then the fact that Duchamp tagged it (with the name "R. Mutt") does not make him the artist, or even an artist, but a curator with a sense of humor. If that was not the case, then I know a kid in Brooklyn with a spray can who owns a train.
To compound things, what if you photograph the thing, what have you got then? Another original work of art? A copy? A representation? And what if I print the photograph to a T-Shirt and I only make one shirt. There are many 'Fountain' reproductions in the world, so if I only have one T-Shirt, what becomes the more valuable thing, the original or the derivative?
What Duchamp has done, really, to use modern parlance, is that he 'sampled' an object, and in the process demonstrated that industrial design could be and should be considered Art. Therefore the real artist of 'Fountain' is –MUST be– the actual designer/s of the thing, and his or her or their name/s appear lost to history (and/or to the Bedford Ceramic Urinal Manufacturer files).
As it happens, Duchamp's original 'work' was accidentally thrown out with garbage but authorized forgeries exist in museums all over the world, and we couldn't be happier about that, because we don't need the original nothing Duchamp didn't create, when we have something even more valuable and interesting to 21st Century audiences: a reproduction.
Not to mention, this circumstance makes my one-of-a-kind T-Shirt worth a million bucks.
A GOLDEN AGE OF ENTERTAINMENT
So, no surprise, right, that today's TV/PC and possibly Adderall enhanced human chooses this exercise –COPY AND PASTE– to exemplify the height of new media/ new millennium creativity. And why not, when the process is democratic and damn fun to boot, even if the results inconsequential (and even profitable)? Art (With a capital 'A') has had its golden age; maybe this moment (right now) is a Golden Age of Entertainment? I think it is.
And yet, even if that is the case, then you still have to ask: If everyone is doing it, how special can it be?
The answer?
Only time, critics and copyright law will tell.
+
'The Physical Impossibility of A flower from a Balloon' is composite two works: The shark image is from the Damien Hirst work, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991); the image of the balloon sculpture is of a Jeff Koons work: A flower from a balloon (Purple) (1995-2000). All other images presented here are provided for the necessary purposes of illustrating points of this essay.
Let's for a moment accept the old fashioned premise that traditional artwork, whatever the medium, falls into two categories:
ORIGINAL or DERIVATIVE
The following melody represents an original creation. It is not the result of a found sound, a recorded sample copied and pasted off a long forgotten B-side, or a well reiterated meme there for the mere replicating. Rather it is a wholly unique and original (though not completely alien) communication conceived via some combination of mysterious inspirational and biological processes which we still don't understand, but it is seemingly composed out of the synaptic ether from the singularly sophisticated brain of one brilliant composer:
Isaac Stern performs Bach Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001 Fugue
And so was this melody:
Britney Spears performs Max Martin Baby One More Time
But this I'm not sure about:
Consider Girl Talk's latest album ALL DAY, which samples and posits each of its 372 sampled riffs, procured from a repertoire of previously recorded and popular hit songs, is an instantly recognizable hook.
Girl Talk - This is the Remix
ALL DAY is superbly fun. Indeed, it's like mainlining crystalline ear candy or some other highly addictive central nervous system stimulant, but does it represent something new? And to my ear and aesthetic, it exemplifies the latest post millennial model for presenting existing art works –all at once, sort of like bubblegum memetics or flashmobbing music. But I'm not sure the samples represent small enough microstructures that one could say the work was composed by Girl Talk. Rather, more factual I think to state that ALL DAY stretches the boundaries of the curator's craft and is more aptly considered an experimental and Experiential Playlist created by Girl Talk.
Of course, the same can be said of Kutiman's JUST A LADY, composed by editing several different video clips into a montage and layering their respective audio tracks so that they sync into a composite unified whole. JUST A LADY may or may not be a new work, or even a derivative work. To me, it is closer to representing the experience of walking into a room where more than one sonic artist is performing, and their respective performances (10 to be exact) just happen sync. This is what 5.1 Surround Sound sounds like when it's squished into a compressed A/V file. And quite elegantly, actually.
Kutiman-Thru-you - 07 - Just a Lady
BLURRED BOUNDARIES
There are several works in the Kutiman oeuvre, and together they remind me very much of Darren Solomon's interactive 'In Bb', which may either be a composition or an electronic game; John Cage's Music of Changes (1951); Nam June Paik's Düsseldorf matrix 1995 Swatch installation; and even the Brian Eno and David Byrne collaboration, 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts', among many other such works created, constructed or composed over the last fifty years. Nam June Paik: installation Düsseldorf matrix 1995 Swatch
Present distribution platforms may be revolutionary, but our experience of all the above mentioned works is similar to some degree. I think it interesting, though that the Byrne/Eno cycle is the only one which offers a memorable audio experience. Whereas Solomon's 'In Bb' is a fun interactive device, the content itself is forgettable, maybe because each A/V asset is not the result of Solomon's singular inspiration, but the result of crowdsourcing. Paik's audio is simply incidental, and Cage, one suspects, simply wants to be appreciated for his theories. But of course, that is the point of much 'modern art'. What the artists want us to remember is the concept. Neither sound nor object is the thing, it is the blurred boundaries, and that is an intangible.
So if one is simply trying to appreciate a thing for itself, then no wonder it eventually strikes one as boring. Conceptually, however, all three composers –Solomon, Paik and Cage– have produced utterly fascinating works. It's when we actually listen to them that our attention wavers.
In fact, it may appear as if we are making Art where content doesn't matter.
In this aspect all Conceptual Artists share a common motivation with all mashup makers. And since mashups have gone mainstream, there now are a lot of people disseminating interesting ideas using otherwise incidental art as a means of distribution.
What amazing intellectual heights our species has reached! It's stuff like this that separates us from apes, and thanks to INTEL and others, we can frickin gorge ourselves on it.
Make no mistake, my iPhone circa 2011 is way more cooler than my TRS-80 circa 1979 (though I still wish I had it), and my iPad does so much more than an Etch A Sketch. But one thing I sometimes miss, is a world in which songs were not slammed together in the titillating Celebrity Deathmatch we call the mashup.
Yes, mashups are fun, entertaining, –a bold new art form, perhaps.
But have you noticed, the mashup is not just a technique or medium, but in fact a mindset which has produced a transformative effect on the way we measure the value of objects which otherwise serve no utilitarian purpose. I know that in and of itself sounds rather negative, but of course, I'm talking about Art.
For instance, if you are old enough, or have some understanding of the history of computer assisted composition, recall that prior to the turn of new millennium, music composed with, on, or by computer was far more original by any subjective measure than that which is produced today with Digital Audio Workstations which arguably offer far greater means of expression for their operator/ programmer/ composers than the room sized chips of past.
What I mean by this is that early computer music composers were more interested in seeing what they could do with these machines to produce that which had not been done before, and I don't mean sending untrained singers up the pop charts. Contrast this with today's music producer who employs computers not so much in the execution of something different, but in the mashup and remix of the 'pre-existent'. And it is this activity that is in fact the primary and popular trend in both the popular and fine arts alike at the present.
We don't even have to go as far back as Max Matthews or Morton Subotnick; or confine ourselves to the halls of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center; or IRCAM. Even the 8-bit music of Pac-Man for instance, whether you think it amusing or annoying, simple or cheesy, and lacking a sophisticated polyphonic tapestry, nevertheless embodies –if we may say that about sound– originality. Pac Man Arcade Game Play
Contrast that with the fact that some 30 years later, we might amuse ourselves not by creating something equally original for our time, but rather by replicating the sound of 30-yr old 8-bit compositions, only we're doing so on our tricked out ProTools systems.
At least chip tune composers using 1980s-era technology, embedded with SID chips, can now be found creating new original works, and many have become micromusic virtuosos of this technology.
Rymdreglage - 8-bit trip
Arguably, some of this originality is born of limitations. Except that now we live in age with few and possibly no limitations.
But what if originality is actually the child of limitation?
I
don't accept the oft held notion that making art is just expressing an
idea or making stuff (except within a pedagogical context). I think
making Art is like having Sex (or should be). But in this I mean, "the process of combining and mixing genetic traits".
And
if that's the case, then what's the implication of a society where the
term is more commonly thought of as a solitary practice one does in the
loving company of one's computer? Or executed as a fleeting hook up,
whereby we are not so much hoping to 'combine and mix our respective genetic traits', but instead simply enjoy a momentary mash of external body parts?
Obviously,
there are those who are using new media tools and concepts to create
new and interesting artworks. But it is also interesting to note that
the trend (or movement) which has currently captured the widest public
attention is the one that parallels contemporary notions of coupling. Of
course, I'm talking about the Mashup, and the more I look and listen, the more I notice how this activity resonates in every aspect of our culture.
By now, most people have heard of Moore's Law,
which states the number of transistors that an integrated circuit
doubles approximately every two years. And if we have thought at all
about that statement, we might have realized that as chips are getting
faster, all this power will have (is having) an increasing effect on our
collective ability to process information.
Some say we are evolving. Others say we are losing our ability to concentrate. Neither statement is completely false nor true.
Regardless,
I cannot help but wonder how the onslaught of a self-prescribed sugar
drip of disruptive information is impacting art, artists and audiences.
And it should be obvious by now what the future holds:
Modular
all-you-can-eat works that present a buffet of images within a single
frame remixing everything the artist has ever googled in a lifetime for
audiences who select and simultaneously consume multiple works layered
one upon the other, synced to a playlist, compressed to a thumbnail, and
arranged in such a way that the entire experience can be enjoyed as a
secondary or tertiary activity, like while running on a treadmill, for
instance, or like while talking or texting while running on a treadmill.
This technology has existed since the 1920's (it's called
'Television'), but it will seem absolutely revolutionary streaming out
of our smartphones, because additional plugins allow us to connect with
the real world which we are otherwise intent on ignoring. Not to mention
that it won't be the only screen in the room competing for our
attention. And not to say that it won't be enjoyable. We won't be able
to take our eyes off of it.
Or will we indeed walk into
a real gallery or museum only to be faced with rooms full of blank
canvases whose content can only be seen once you hold your iPhone up to
them? Even if each canvas represents the work of a single artist, isn't
our perception of them through the lens of an electronic device, itself
also a manifestation of the mashup mindset?
At which
point we might then very well lament the good ol' slow days, but who
would want to return, really, when you can now carry the entire Louvre around in an app?
We
may be awash in great industrial design, but I wonder how many people
today actually experience a painting with their faces so close to the
canvas that it can be appreciated not simply as a two dimensional image
on a screen, but as the 3D object it actually is?
Because
at such scale, image is incidental. Instead, we become aware that the
thing can be appreciated for its texture as well as the image it
projects. This is an important note, because it is in that very texture,
in the evidence left behind by the application of paint, that we can
experience an artist's effort, energy and humanity. It is, to put it
another way, the blood left behind at the crime scene.
A
parallel circumstance exists in music. There are substantial numbers of
people who rarely experience music live. By 'live', I don't simple
mean, in person, I mean, without pre-recorded accompaniment.
For
this audience, music is experienced as a recording, or as a recording
accompanied by dancers pretending to sing live. The result is that we've
produced in ourselves a population that considers the product of art to
be some perfect thing, when in fact, its real power is in its
imperfections, which possess the innate ability to communicate
something directly from the artist's soul to the viewer or listener, who
then elects to accept or reject an opportunity to learn something about
our collective humanity.
What is 'Style', anyway, but the sum composite of perfectly executed imperfections from a given performer?
I can imagine that one day the act of looking at a painting will come to mean all of the following as a simultaneous action:
Looking at a given painting;
Listening to a playlist or pre-recorded narrative;
Watching a multimedia display;
Taking a picture of the given artwork;
Posting the image to the web;
Alerting all our social networks that we are presently admiring art;
Some virtual applause, not for the art itself, but for appreciation of the art.
Or will we instead choose to take our time sauntering
through World of Warcraft galleries, content to linger in the cloud for
hours, just so long as we don't actually have to leave the house?
Don't laugh, because actually, we are already there.
If
there is a reason photographs and video dominate our taste, it is
because we live in age that lacks exposure and appreciation for timbre
and texture. We see a sign and accept it at face value; who among us
today asks if the brush stroke itself contains meaning?
So,
if our main experience of art is only via reproduction on a screen, it
may seem to lack something. Or if our main experience of art is flipping
through an online gallery, it may be that art in the flesh, however
original or brilliantly executed, simply doesn't move fast enough (to
move us). Or if we have all suddenly evolved into astute, design minded
visual thinkers, then maybe we're simply jaded with this avalanche of
image –screens and logos everywhere, even in one's pocket!
Certainly
there are new artists doing new things, even old artists doing new
things, and artists and non-artists alike doing interesting things (this
is the really beauty of the Internet). But on the surface it also feels
like many of those things are additions to an existing cultural
repertoire, not an evolution, much less an indication of a radical
evolutionary shift.
Thus it bears mentioning, the digital divide is not simply an economic one, nor does it always favor the wired.
Have
you also sometimes felt that western culture has been on a wash, rinse
and repeat cycle ever since Sade, Sonic Youth and Spandau Ballet ruled
the charts. A quarter of a century later, we have nifty new smartphones
that can do a gazillion different amazing things, but western culture
itself, has been on hold since the Reagan/Thatcher era.
In fact, it
would not shock me if a thousand years from now historians framed the
entire period from 1980 to 2080 as 'The Eighties'.
Maybe
'on hold' is not the right phrase, because we aren't frozen in time.
Rather, with the advent of the Internet combined with nostalgia for the
receding century, what's happening now is that the entire past, if it
has been recorded in some manner, is suddenly present, and not only
accessibly, but demanding equal space/attention/value with everything
else in the media universe.
Whereas once we lived serial lives and our
connections limited by channels, now we have access to all channels that
ever were resulting in a weird moment when all fashions co-exist, if
only on the screen of your mobile phone.
But here's the
thing, they don't simply exist on our screens – the screen is a portal,
and not only for users seeking information, but for information seeking
users.
So what does it feel like to be alive in 2011? It feels like every color is color of the year; every hemline is in; every hit song in the last fifty years is current, and everyone is doing and wearing and tapped into everything.
As my friend Hal Cragin also once observed, "It's like everything is happening at once."
Coincidentally, then Sun Microsystems Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Gregory Papadopoulos
has written on his own blog a 2006 entry that's actually titled,
'Everything is Happening at Once'. In that article, he notes: "…the
technology constants change rapidly (faster, smaller, cheaper), but the
rate of change for organizing principles and architectures are glacial."
These are not competing observations, and in fact,
together they identify one reason why we may feel stuck. Information is
swirling around us but we haven't actually been sucked into the
whirlpool yet, maybe because we don't know where we're going yet. Is
that why, with all this new technology, we're not doing much more with
it than remixing the past?
Suffice to say, today, everyone has eclectic tastes, if not an original idea.
Trends,
as they go, don't necessarily signal the ascent of something new
anymore, but rather only something popular, and often even ever more
accurately, something returning to popularity.
That's an interesting distinction.
The
way we experience trends has changed, too. We don't actually experience
them alone, in our bedrooms, isolated from the world; we link
to them from the other side of the planet and then share our finds with
our friends, wherever they may be, and who may or may not actually be,
y'know, actually real friends.
This
kind of activity is practical if our main point is research, or if we
want to tap in to, or become a hub for a perpetual feed of self
identified crowd sourced, niche-defined mass entertainment, and to that
extent, we've certainly succeeded. This has been boon times for porn,
for instance, and the stuff we call content now has never been in
greater demand, but I'm not sure that it's healthy for Art with a
capital 'A', though.
Not yet, anyway. We have in our
hands new tools. The relative connected few that have access to them have really only
wielded them for a few years, not even a decade in most cases. iPhones have only been around since 2007. Professional photographers are still learning how to use Adobe Photoshop with any real aesthetic; professional musicians are often too busy weighing the pros and cons of one digital workstation over another to actually ever master the arts of composing, recording mixing or performing. It doesn't matter if you're fifty with a shelf full of industry awards – we've all been turned into beginners, and that's why twelve year olds represent real competition – because, dammit, give them a bit of HTML or Object Oriented Programming, and they absolutely are (cue nervous laughter and a tall alcoholic beverage here).
So, if the
current spate of new technology represents anything, it may be conceived as a networked
series of incendiary devices, like a mine field, that once ignited,
blows up virtuosos in serial succession by shredding their once giant
talents into small, common childlike curiosities for one brand new object after
another.
