With the wide-spread adoption of the Internet artistic creation is at an amazing high. New art-forms and pieces emerge every day fueled by the accessibility and mass exposure the Internet allows. Is true art being diluted by the garbage being presented as art on the Internet?

How It Used to Be Done

The Dedication – The Blood, Sweat and Tears

As an artist 20 years ago, you were a very special breed. Someone with a lot of dedication to their craft, someone with a lot of passion for their craft. If you wanted to make it anywhere as an artist there were a lot of hoops to jump through.

First, you needed to invest years into your craft. You had to dedicate yourself to it and practice every spare moment you had. You had to create prolifically, pushing boundaries, learning new techniques, familiarizing yourself with the rules before breaking them. Depending on your skill and your craft, you may have been in this stage for decades before ever considering unleashing your work on the public.

The Editorial Aspect – The Filter

Before you received public exposure you had a lot of pavement-pounding work ahead of you. You had to find a publisher who was willing to put your work out to the masses. As a songwriter you had to find a publisher, as a writer a publishing house, as a painter a gallery who would be willing to display your work. All along the way you faced rejection, anger, fear, and a lot of other personal emotions for the input that you received about your work. “The painting is too abstract”, “Your plot has been done before”, “Guitar music is on the way out“.

From this point you either press on with what you have, maybe you perfect it or maybe you change it altogether to fit the mold that someone is looking for. You now re-group, re-package, re-affirm that you are not the un-original wannabe that they all tell you that you are. This takes a lot of dedication and a lot of perseverance. It also takes very thick skin and a love for the craft that overpowers the pain of the rejections you will most likely receive.

Finally, after months or years or decades of hard work and perspiration someone decides to publish your article in their magazine, market your album or display your sculpture. But there’s a catch; the album has too many songs, the chapters in the book are too short. You now need to edit. Someone else is taking your creative child and asking you to slaughter it! So now you decide to work with the editorial figure-head to make your work more “marketable” or “mass-digestable”.

The Recognition

Your creation is now ready for glory and fame and the recognition that it deserves, that you’ve worked so hard for. At this point the public and your artistic peers have the say and either they accept your work and offer you the accolades that you have always dreamed of, or they dismiss it or ignore it.

How It Works Now

Instant, Self-Publishing

I can now create whatever I want and expose it to the masses. With the advent of the Internet The Filter is circumvented.

I can write and record a song and post it to thesixtyone.com — a really cool new music site, by the way — and get exposure for myself or for my band. It doesn’t have to be good, I don’t even have to have a really good grasp of what it is I’m doing.

I call it art and I tell others it’s art, and I put it out there.

Is It Art?

Should we call it art though? This is one of those philosophical questions that people have asked for ages; “Who decides what is art?

I watched Marlon Brando, someone I respect and admire very much as a talented artist, tell a reporter in an interview I found on YouTube that he was not a great artist. He almost seemed insulted that the interviewer would even suggest that he was an artist.

Recently Kenny Chesney received an award for Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music. The award caused a lot of controversy when he expressed his disdain that the award was chosen by the public rather than the members of the academy.

“So… Who Does Decide What Is Art?”

Creations should only be called art after an immense amount of practice, determination — and most importantly — acceptance by other artists. The honor of having your work called art should be bestowed upon you by other artists, not the public in general and definitely not by yourself. If you are truly an artist, other artists will recognize it.

I can’t call myself an artist and the general public can’t accurately call me an artist either. If I have even a limited amount of skill in my craft, I probably have much more skill than 90% of the general public. Of course they are going to call me an artist.

When other artists recognize you — people who are also highly skilled — it’s fair to say that you are a skilled artist and your work can be considered art.

The Pros and Cons of “Art” on The Internet

Pros

1. The Internet is a great way to get exposure. Using social networking an aspiring artist can gain a lot of exposure for their craft using the Internet. You can receive a lot of feedback, both positive and negative, from people throughout the world.
2. Easier access. It is easier and faster to get the exposure and feedback online. It is also easier for fans or potential fans to access your work.
3. No editorial review. No one can tell you what you can and cannot do, can’t tell you that you are breaking established rules or limit what you do creatively.

Cons

1. There’s a lot of garbage. With everyone jockeying to promote their creations, there is an awful lot of garbage that you have to sift through before finding something good.
2. The good stuff is easily missed. Within all of that garbage, it is easy for the good stuff to be lost in the confusion.
3. No editorial review. Also listed as a pro, the lack of the editorial filter makes it easy for the garbage to become mixed within the good stuff.
4. Monetary potential can be limited. Although there are many ways to make money online, a lot of them are not directly linked to your craft, people are not necessarily paying for your craft. Advertising is not really the same as being paid for your creation and it isn’t as satisfying as someone deciding to to purchase a canvas you painted so they can display it in their living room.

The Internet is An Anarchic Sandbox

The Internet has no order, no governing bodies for content and no filters but it is a great place to play. The Internet is a great place to practice, get feedback, network, and get some exposure but it isn’t the place to become recognized as an artist. If you are serious about your craft you should probably pursue the traditional avenues to get yourself published, recognized, credited and paid.

There are many bloggers who have gone on to write books and bands or singers who have gone from MySpace to a record deal but it does not work the other way around. Published writers are not tripping over each other to get on a blog and signed recording artists are not trampling each other to get a MySpace page.

I definitely believe the Internet dilutes true works of art by mixing them with all of the garbage that is passed as art on the Internet.

Is the Internet diluting true art? Is there too much being passed as art on the Internet? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Tags: Art, Music, Painting, Writing

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Creativity, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.