Reading Karl’s latest post about Ultra Minimal Non-Conceptual art got me thinking a bit about where we are headed as far as art movements go. Here is my view.

Please bear in mind that this post was purely based on my ideas and observations and at most the product of an effort to understand the art world better. Hopefully I have managed to convey some sense, but if not, my sincere apologies.

Since a picture is worth a 1000…, I created a little graph to clarify the thinking a bit further and here goes…More... 
All the movements depicted in the vertical axis depict major modern movements that captivated and channeled artists and society. It lasted roughly from 1880 and is deemed to end about now…  The horizontal axis indicates a perceived degree of satisfaction that society might have obtained from each of these movements (again, the data here may be a bit non-empirical).
 

sunils_crazy_graph.JPG

 

Pre 2000:
All of the major movements before Y2K had their genesis in times where differentiation and specialization of society/life/culture was minimal. In my view, societal satisfaction with ‘art’ levels were on an average, pretty low – a small group of people who were ‘in’ on the arts got to dictate and form the majority opinion with which the excluded played catch up years down the line.

Now:
We live in an age today where most areas we encounter have associated specialties and super specialties. We have morphed into a culture where we can all tailor, stitch and suit ourselves in our little fantasies. We can create, indulge, live and breathe our own private wishes and be coddled by attendant purveyors of the same if we have the means to pay for the comforts.

The art movements pre Y2K were less appreciated by the society at large because it did not have the level of personalization that can be inducted in the upcoming arts of today – a look at some of the burgeoning art of hactivism, animated gifs and second life are but small examples. The ‘new’ art will involve ever smaller groups of people who will seek out their own creative urges, use the necessary tools to pursue them and have a dedicated following devoted to the ideas expressed by the group.

The era of Individualism (or specialized personalized art) is here. An era where satisfaction levels would be higher among smaller groups of followers in the society: but with a difference – the avenues and means to express oneself creatively having exploded would naturally foster larger numbers of specialized groups to create or follow their own artistic movements (either contributing, collecting or enjoying). When the numbers of such groups increase due to lower barriers of entry (you can sit at your computer, create art and share it with millions worldwide at the click of a button), it would naturally translate to a larger percent of society gaining satisfaction through pursuit of these fragmented but tailor-made individualistic movements.

Note:

VIDA 10.0 is an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines, such as robotics and Artiftcial Intelligence.We are looking for artistic projects that address the interaction between “synthetic” and “organic” life”. In previous years prizes have been awarded to artistic projects using autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life. Applicants should refer to awards previously granted at VIDA’s web page to determine suitability of their project.