Art’s evolution is converging with unprecedented technology. Has its future and purpose been rendered useless?
I once effectively argued (by my own and peer perceptions) to a professor in art school that art is not subjective, only tastes are. I used science to back up my assertions, citing the golden mean. I insisted this Golden ratio is the blueprint for everything in nature and is quantitative. Meaning, esthetic measure is hard-wired in all humans to assist in our navigation of pleasure and pain in order to thrive on the planet. My point was, there is measurable science, such as balance in composition and color theory, behind not only what we deem beautiful, but also the reason cultures collectively hold certain works of art in higher esteem. This is the underlying reason the Mona Lisa is valuable enough to be under some serious security, instead of aunt Betty’s plein air painting, which she took up at 55 years of age.
20 years later and wiser, as an artist in both traditional and digital mediums, I often contemplate my purpose for making art and how I’ve tempered and supplemented my purpose and income with technology. The same science has shaped humanity as whole, but will it shape art as kindly as, say, medicine?
Clearly I relate to this topic as an artist with a cultural perspective. As artists grapple with where to appropriate their talents to satisfy their drive for not only self expression, but for survival. It seems all artistic disciplines benefit from technology these days. Technology itself is a spectacular medium, tool, and even subject matter. But will technology eventually render art useless and will art die along with its sole purpose?
As the next or fourth transformation emerges, crests, and eventually antiquates our use of smartphones and handheld devices, I wonder if art will it once again merge with science and math as its Greek inception. On a human level, how will technology shape and advance the importance of creativity in art and culture? Money is being thrown at innovation to create and advance technologies, not really art itself. At the end of the day sure, creativity is not afforded only to artists, I get that. In fact, we have recently developed an algorithm that emulates creativity. https://www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx . But if we fund, encourage, and appropriate all creativity to the robots, where is art? Will innovation and technology replace the creative process, rendering art obsolete or useless to humanity? On a positive note, a recently published article by Sean Dorrance Kelly suggests Humans may be able to actually and creatively leverage and use “artificial Creativity” (computational creativity) as a tool itself, paving the way to ultra intelligence that will seem alien to us, which could flip epistemology on its head.
At the very least, art and the artist’s purpose has altered drastically in the face of recent technology. This creates an interesting side argument: Therefore has the convergence of technology with art spelled a divergence with ourselves and our very core? I’m not surmising that art represents the human soul, but it can, and along with science, it is considered an anthropological means for measuring the advancement of a culture. Art was once sponsored by the church and state 100’s of years ago, and capitalism helped it into the bourgeois and ultimately the private sector. So what happens when technology drives culture? Albeit, cameras did not destroy illustration, and the 3d printer has yet to destroy sculpture. Technology has improved the artists medium throughout the years, such as water-based oil paints, digital cameras, and photoshop, and thus its effect on the subject matter. But these recent technologies seems to have moved in front of the medium and in front of the camera lens, leaving the creator in the shadows. Much in the same way CGI has taken the place of actors in movies. The director James Cameron pointed this out in an interview. Clearly technology has both facilitated and corrupted the art making process. We have “auto-tuned” and “pitch-corrected” our lack of skills and our reality. Can technology “auto-correct” our lack of imagination? I’m only scratching the surface. This leaves truly skilled artists faced with a dilemma, where the only way to survive is making corporate art or abandoning their calling all together.
The notion of supplementing the less talented and less capable with technology, leads me to believe creativity is not as valuable as we profess. Universities are more often replacing critical thought with programming and vocation training. Our institutions and companies are funding innovation not creativity. What little creativity they recognize and foster are being pooled solely for the engineering of our own discourse with ourselves and the very flaws in our stars. Now scientists examine and debate whether AI is a real threat to humanity. I once read historically, humans will be described as sex organs for AI. This all sounds a lot like fodder for sci-fi novelists, as they love to fantasize humanity going out screaming and kicking in a despotic man vs. machine fight. I’m not so sure its fiction.
