Post-Media and Pissing on Art

"The artist is a not great creator—Duchamp went shopping at a plumbing store. The artwork is not a special object—it was mass-produced in a factory. The experience of art is not exciting and ennobling—at best it is puzzling and mostly leaves one with a sense of distaste. But over and above that, Duchamp did not select just any ready-made object to display. In selecting the urinal, his message was clear: Art is something you piss on." - Stephen Hicks

Up until the very late 19th century, Art was mostly a manifestation of aristocratic societies. The artist, whether an Egyptian slave carving the Pharaoh's tomb, or Michelangelo painting for the Pope, or Monet painting for some rich socialité, art was a consequence of social inequality, and for most people, a luxury. The advent of state socialism, the general improvement of everybody´s lot, mass communications and production...all that changed the scope of art and consequently, its very nature. It is no longer a superior material expression of society. Duchamp killed that notion. He killed art as humans knew it for 10,000 years or however long we've been doing it. He was against it, against art. He wanted to tell everybody how ridiculous this concept that people had of it was. 

Today, everybody is an artist and nobody is an artist. We do have people who earn a living out of it. But most of us have also made a 6-second Vine video and some of them are pretty good too. We like them better sometimes than the current media exhibition at ROCCO. Make a .gif, a website, buy some flower stuff at Michael's and do something for your grandma. Is is art? Wrong question. There is no such thing as art anymore, I think. We have people who paint really well, people who pretentiously or not paint something abstract, we have filmmakers and singers, etc, etc. And of course, there's everybody else with a pencil or a laptop. What's good art? What's not? 

......

Media is a wonderful curse. Everybody gets a shot. Greatness is gone too. There are no more masterpieces. They are just too difficult, and there are too many art critiques to agree on one. We want it easy. More people can create their own concepts and do something to represent them. Its valid. In a society where everybody is equal, the name of the game is mediocrity. No matter who or what you are, you can still be somebody. You do get the occasional star, but it will hardly shine by producing videos of cats on YouTube. Take a look at Tom Hanks' speech to the Yale graduates. 
"My appearing today at Yale University is surely one of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse...Please, DO NOT turn off your electronic devices. Take the speech and set it to music, and maybe insert some crazy cookie graphics, posted on the web, and if it becomes a viral sensation, you'll be equal to any cat playing with a paper bag, as popular as a cute girl that sings about Fridays...hey! you can be the next Sam Tsui!...Boredom has been vanquished! That same technology has allowed for a surplus of celebrities, and that is nothing to cheer about."
Welcome to the "playback" culture Hivagimyan talks about. 

Post-media has the potential to break this pattern, (or perhaps make it worse). To bring spontaneity, originality and less of a standardization of culture and media. Computer algorithms making art? Maybe, but certainly new and unexpected things can come out of them just as we have seen with the advent of photography, video, and .gif art. We could stop reproduction and iteration, or at least contain it. And we will still keep doing those things that we have been doing for a while, like cat videos, and funny videos, etc., just as people keep sketching and painting and playing acoustic guitars.We might stop pissing on art for a while. Or maybe that's exactly what we should keep doing. 

There are many great artists out there today. Great pianists, insightful directors, etc, whether they are recognized or not. But there's a lot of shit out there too, I think. Or too many art critiques. Not sure which one.