{"id":1250,"date":"2009-01-23T08:32:08","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T16:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2009\/01\/expression_and_environment\/"},"modified":"2009-01-23T08:32:08","modified_gmt":"2009-01-23T16:32:08","slug":"expression_and_environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/expression_and_environment.php","title":{"rendered":"Expression and environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we talk about cultural disciplines — dance, theater, fiction, and so on — we tend to speak of them as if they are self-contained. Theater may respond to evolving stage technology and alternative spacers, but it’s still roughly theater in the way we know it. And because significant changes to the environment have tended to happen rather slowly, it’s been easy to maintain that illusion for quite some time.<\/p>\n

This overview of the past and future of the novel<\/a>, in Time<\/i> magazine, reminds us that forms of artistic expression are entirely<\/i> intertwined with their environment. They form and evolve in response to that environment. And they change when that environment changes. The birth of the novel in the 18th century was one such response to environmental change. Says the article:<\/p>\n

New industrial printing techniques meant you could print lots of books
\ncheaply; a modern capitalist marketplace had evolved in which you could
\nsell them; and for the first time there was a large, increasingly
\nliterate, relatively well-off urban middle class to buy and read them.
\nOnce those conditions were in place, writers like Defoe and Richardson
\nshowed up to take advantage of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When you stop to think of it, all of the cultural forms we now consider as self-contained and place-independent were born this way. Sacred choral music of the distant past was born to fill the cavernous cathedrals and lingering acoustics that technology and hubris and social hierarchy had built. What we now call chamber music evolved to fill aristocratic spaces. And on and on.<\/p>\n

Architecture defines art — whether it’s physical architecture, or financial, or market, or economic, or social, or even legal. When that architecture changes, by intent or by tidal force, art will change in response.<\/p>\n

The challenge comes when we’ve built institutions, infrastructures, and business models that serve one particular architecture that are unable or unwilling to adapt to a new one. Consider the Time<\/i> article’s description of old and new publishing:<\/p>\n

Old Publishing is stately, quality-controlled and relatively expensive.
\nNew Publishing is cheap, promiscuous and unconstrained by paper, money
\nor institutional taste. If Old Publishing is, say, a tidy,
\nwell-maintained orchard, New Publishing is a riotous jungle: vast and
\ntrackless and chaotic, full of exquisite orchids and undiscovered
\ntreasures and a hell of a lot of noxious weeds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly, the architecture of our universe has changed. The forms and means and methods of artistic expression will change too. It’s not that our traditional means will vanish, but they will certainly recede as smaller players in a richer ecosystem. Sounds like a task and a challenge for a brave new batch of cultural entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we talk about cultural disciplines — dance, theater, fiction, and so on — we tend to speak of them as if they are self-contained. Theater may respond to evolving stage technology and alternative spacers, but it’s still roughly theater in the way we know it. And because significant changes to the environment have tended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}