Interesting thoughts on artistry and authorship in this excerpt from Aram Sinnreich’s book Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture. It’s now a well-worn story that technology is blurring the line between artist and audience, and our understanding of art-making and artists is evolving. But Sinnreich tells the story rather well. Says he:
The biggest myth of all is the Romantic notion that artists somehow create their work uniquely and from scratch, that paintings and sculptures and songs emerge fully-formed from their fertile minds like Athena sprang from Zeus. Running a close second is the myth that only a handful of us possess the raw talent — or the genius — to be an artist. According to this myth, the vast majority of us may be able to appreciate art to some degree, but we will never have what it takes to make it. The third myth is that an artist’s success (posthumous though it may be) is proof positive of his worthiness, that the marketplace for art and music functions as some kind of aesthetic meritocracy.
Sinnreich draws on DJ culture to explore the evolution, since DJs are at the edge of copyright, creative ownership, and remixing/mashing.
So much of our economic infrastructure in arts and culture is based on the assumption that artistry is scarce and artists are separate. As those assumptions change, our work will change as well.
Exciting future for exploring new perspectives in art! If you haven’t already, check out the interactive music experience, “The Wilderness Downtown” from Gray Area Foundation’s Aaron Koblin and director Chris Milk: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
As well as this followup analysis on the future of film editing in light of this interactive project: http://bit.ly/cU42IG
Demonstrates very much what you are talking about in this excellent post.