Over the last decades, value shifted from art to artist. We still travel to see singular works of art: da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Caravaggio’s Medusa, Klimt’s The Kiss, Picasso’s Guernica, The Rothko Chapel, The Lightening Field by Walter De Maria. Yet it is no longer enough for an artwork to be authentic. The audience wants to see beyond the art, to know if what the artist makes is a true extension of their self.
Searching for authenticity of the artist requires more information, from which the audience can draw their own conclusions. As the internet became ubiquitous, artists and writers shared the story of our work, our experiences and why we create. A range of platforms facilitated sharing this information in chronological order, making it easy to follow the story and interact with creators. This increased recognition of creators and, potentially, the value of our work.
The traditional artworld was slow to recognise, adopt and make use of this shift. Greater authenticity requires transparency, which runs counter to the interests of some in a notoriously opaque industry who behaved unethically and don’t want past actions revealed.
In early 2020 the pandemic caused an abrupt, mass migration online, including the traditional artworld. People shared information about themselves and their work with desperate urgency. Suddenly we knew too much about everyone. Revelations that might have felt raw, edgy, taboo or exciting fifteen years earlier seemed cringe and predictable. Overfamiliarity with the artist reduces some of the magic of experiencing art.
Before, we had to seek information. Now, information from all over the world comes at us, all the time and is curated by algorithms, replacing the journey of discovery with easy dopamine hits.
In response, we seek ways to let in the information we want and exclude everything else. The process of figuring out authenticity has changed from navigating the mysterious to sifting through junk.
Yet the shift in value from creation to creator remains, as does audience desire for authenticity. I suspect this desire will intensify as greater transparency – and the consequences of it – is forced upon the arts by the uncontrollable flow of information online during the Information Age. Technically the Information Age is over, but the fallout continues.
No one agrees what the next Age is, yet. Some call it the Internet of Things or the Age of Surveillance. A few years ago, it was optimistically coined the Imagination Age, a time when imagination and creativity would be primary value creators. Now, it seems the next phase of history will be the Age of A.I., piously described by Bill Gates on gatesnotes.com with an insightful, amusing counterview published by Newsweek Magazine, titled AI is Scariest Beast Ever Created, Says Sci-Fi Writer Bruce Sterling.
In just a few years artistic conversation shifted from excitement about newly valued creators and the liberating possibilities of A.I. to a viral comment by writer Joanna Maciejewska, “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”
There is a general sense of fatigue from trying to adapt the way we communicate online, which often devolves to reality tv vibes, performative activism, clickbait, the outrage economy, parasocial relationships, faux relatability, professional victims, trolling to increase views via the algorithm which bumps fees for product placement, Sam Bankman-Fried’s version of effective altruism (aka theft), endless grifting, and enormous profit for owners of the few platforms on which we communicate.
There are, of course, many examples of artists and other creatives using major platforms and online strategies exceptionally well, creating and communicating authentically. I just don’t have the temperament to do it that way.
My strategy is to do the opposite: streamline, incorporate pauses, communicate less yet with intensity, embrace mystery, edit hard, go with my own rhythm – and continue building an online presence that is like a raft, floating on the ocean of the internet. To me, these are practical solutions to broader issues when communicating online.
It is a simple approach, really: do everything as if it were poetry.
