Future thrills

Art should not be left to your senses only: you see and you feel an emotional response, you feel well or maybe unwell. The object of your vision is nice or ugly or provocative or… and you react to it. Should you put words to it, intellectualize it? Should you try to conceptualize it, set it into context and make it somehow useful. Your mind is stimulated, you are led into creative processes.

Is the experience of art an individual experience for you alone or can the experience be had in a group of several people or even in a large crowd?

Art can maybe be turned into a useful tool for the development of persons or society, to enhance our lives or improve the way we live. So artists should be challenged to to explain what they are up to, what they intend the outcome of their art to be.

Illusionists use the concepts of the staging, the performance and the effect. May be artists should consider their art as the creation of an illusion and follow it through to as to what effect it is intended to have on individuals, groups or society. On a long term basis we therefore we can see art as a cultural activity in the process of shaping our society – no less! In this way we raise the ambition and improve the effect of art through intellectual/creative activity.

The question of how to commercialize art is also an important one: should individuals, companies, institutions pay up or should art be common pool resource to be shared and paid for by the community.

Art is seldom considered important enough to be elevated to societal importance. Artists should therefore elevate their ambition, strive for effect through staging, performance, economic grounding and ultimately influence and effect on society.

So what can art do for us: show us beauty, form, color, relationships, context, themes, composition … but ultimately and more important be critical of shortfalls, wrongdoings or harmful action in society. It can point the way towards a better, more inclusive and fair  society.

Art can thus be seen part of a total cultural and economic system as a force for development. Artists must enlarge their role – they must be teachers, critics, conceptualizers, political persons, designers and strive for effect.

So artists – let us hear from you – let us begin to see the effect of your work.

New cameras are entering the market all the time, and the rate of technological development is awesome.

The electronics in cameras are becoming computers – they assist you in composing pictures, recognise faces and other objects, help you with aperture and speed, measure light, suggest improvements, store and track your pictures. Memory cards are growing in size unbounded, video requirements being what they are.

Touch screens are being introduced, and the number of buttons and handles are reduced, resulting in improved ease of handling.

Video functions have been introduced for many DSLRs, and are improving all the time. Now camcorders and DSLRs are converging too – imagine doing video with the lense and sensor quality of a DSLR. Mounts are being stanadardized so that lenses can be interchanged and move between types of equipment.

So keep up the good work – this is well done.

And mobile phones are improving vastly as cameras and video-recorders, cameras now have bluetooth, wireless communication: convergence is coming.

Performance art is a wide form of art, and many things are called performance art. Performance artists seem to be able to do what they want and get away with it – although the public in many cases both get annoyed and seem to lack understanding of what is going on and what the artist is on about.

Things are changing, and institution like art academies, performing institutions now embrace performance art.

Performance artists are free to do what they like. They mix genres, create new expressions, they are hybrid, associative and they may go into symbiotic relationships with other forms or artists. Earlier expressions like dadaism, futurism, surrealism often had elements of performance or happenings.

Performance art is about diverse art forms assembled and shown in real time. Happenings are there too, as well as action. Total silence or inaction can also be found – often disturbing audiences that get up and leave.

Many forms can be mixed to create new visions, to stir up intellectual curiosity, to shake up your docile mind. Collaboration is often used to extend the range of possible outcomes.

Free music forms often can often be called performance art – there can be a conscious striving for new forms and content. Theater, dance, pictures, photo, video all use the free form of performance to create, to do do research and be innovative.

Radical experiments are going on, and acceptance can be hard to find in the audience and among the institutions. Performance is often not documented – it is not for posterity – but may become myths as time passes.

Performance often pulls the audience into the action provoking reaction and discussion, and often performance is used as a political tool.

Art is often very commercial, and performance has been used to combat commercial pressures in art.

Education in performance art is found – a nice development that.

Performance is still not mainstream – you have to look for it – it may annoy you – but it can open your mind and be very rewarding emotionally, itellectually and socially. Go get a look, participate!

Are you comfortable about art: Do you understand it, know what is all about, can you discuss it with some sort of confidence? Don’t worry – but you have to put down some work: being there, watching, listening, talking (should be more of that), reading, writing, disagreeing and vice versa, demonstrating, enjoying, laughing – it is all there.

Art is wider, more open and experimental than ever. It is exciting.

An educated mind full of knowledge and experiences from thousands of exhibitions and installations is not enough to make you safe, comfortable, sound and able to think and talk sensibly about the art you observe or take part in. The human mind often balks at new uses and ideas, being  a closed and conditioned system that must be touched, disturbed, shaken from time to time to function well.

So what is new: Technology is there, but so immature, design is now converging with art and forming a symbiosis in the new era of of networks, cooperation, interconnectedness, art is about capturing the moment and developing new techniques to do this, art is coming into design and with it better use and value of products, new forms of music and presentations are coming up, new arenas and settings. Performance artists are crowding in as well – drawing attention to their art form that is rapidly developing. And street art? Watch it, it will grow and become accepted – one day.

Paintings and drawings are in constant flux, but new formats and content can always be found. The obvious and the inexplicable, violent expressions versus stillness and calm is there. You can see special, or say deviant, ways of looking at or describing everyday activity.  The clinically scientific and analytical way of observance or viewing is found. The old themes of loneliness and togetherness are often seen, and hyperactivity is a recent theme. Clever and cunning art is always there.

The human mind is again shown as a roaming device full of unknown twists and turns. This constant outpouring  of new ways, solutions and combinations will continue forever. In art you will see sculpture, installations, political issues interwoven, controversies of many kinds presented as art, breaking convention personal and societal. It is called art, and it is converging with many things.

This is good, you should accept it and take part in it. Doing this will improve your self-confidence as well as your enjoyment of the presentations and activate your brain.

You will see new forms, new combinations, art as creation, find that your mind opens up, and you will be rewarded. True art has intelligence, it touches you too, often deeply, but sometimes just irritates you.

System thinking will also enter art: ecological principles, systems science, networks, symbiosis et al. It all ties together – you will find it rewarding!

Art quality is often measured by its ability to make a lasting impression – difficult to tell when first seen – but worth looking for: Maybe you can say you saw it when it first was shown!