Is technology killing art?

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Atentamente>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

good question, curious to see the answer

i see art all around me, i don't think it's the art that's declining it's the viewer

hawk says the novel is all but dead, not true, the reader is diminishing, i would mourn the loss of real books, but if digital was all that was left, i'd still read

I have looked at the two of them side by side. I've studied the two of them side by side. Four art history courses I've taken deal with Impressionism (General Art History 2, History of Photography, Modern Art Survey, and briefly in The History of Printmaking).

I know how photography influenced the Impressionist painters. I'm not guessing at it.

Osso nailed it. Arts aren't taught in school. It isn't on the test.

Mo goes to one of the best funded public schools in town and the parents run the art program. Every supply comes from private funds. The school supplies the room for the 12 week program but other than that it doesn't cost them a penny. The only reason the school has art is because some of the parents think it's important.

I agree with that whole post except that I know artists personally making a living out of it - not as many who aren't, though. There is also an in between. And some work in allied fields but are still paid well for some of their art work. Remuneration isn't the measure of art, not that you, Fido, are saying that.

Things change as we all know.
And these days, anyone, if they have a minimum of skill in using photoshop, can make rather impressive looking works.
People who have never spent an hour practicing to learn music can make music by means of computer programs that "know" everything for you.

In a local gallery, one "painting" made in photoshop is hanging next to an oil painting that was painted by another, in the old way, using paints and brushes on canvas. Below each artwork is a pricetag, and the prices on the two works is almost the same.
One spent a few hours on photoshop, clicking buttons and chosing among presets. The other spent years and years training his skill, and days and weeks painting the picture.
I am not prepared to grant both of those works the same status as art.
It's the same with music. Someone who has spent years and years practicing their instruments and composing music and someone who just bought a pc can both make music. There are programs that allow you to input the sampled sounds of violins so that you can't tell the difference. Is it a computer or a violinist? Except that a trained musician can hear the difference.

Anyway, it has always seemed to me that the long process of advancing from novice to master in your craft is what grants the wisdom and skill art should express, be it music or painting.
The bottom line is that a computer is a tool. But the tools are so good now that soon we don't need knowledge and skill, only the tools and they do everything for us. But is it still art?

Cyracuz wrote:

Things change as we all know.
And these days, anyone, if they have a minimum of skill in using photoshop, can make rather impressive looking works.
People who have never spent an hour practicing to learn music can make music by means of computer programs that "know" everything for you.

In a local gallery, one "painting" made in photoshop is hanging next to an oil painting that was painted by another, in the old way, using paints and brushes on canvas. Below each artwork is a pricetag, and the prices on the two works is almost the same.
One spent a few hours on photoshop, clicking buttons and chosing among presets. The other spent years and years training his skill, and days and weeks painting the picture.
I am not prepared to grant both of those works the same status as art.
It's the same with music. Someone who has spent years and years practicing their instruments and composing music and someone who just bought a pc can both make music. There are programs that allow you to input the sampled sounds of violins so that you can't tell the difference. Is it a computer or a violinist? Except that a trained musician can hear the difference.

Anyway, it has always seemed to me that the long process of advancing from novice to master in your craft is what grants the wisdom and skill art should express, be it music or painting.
The bottom line is that a computer is a tool. But the tools are so good now that soon we don't need knowledge and skill, only the tools and they do everything for us. But is it still art?

Let see if this is going to happen. Suppose some future computer can produce all the music of the past from some programmer. Would this mean the end of art? I think not. In every time in the past, there were new innovations, and onces people adopt to these innovations, they actually could find a new medium to which they can express more of themselves.

I cannot understand how technology can kill art. I cannot imagine how anything can bring about the so-called "end of art" written about lately. I can, however, imagine ways that the BUSINESS of art, qua a highly commercialized enterprise, can be affected negatively. What seems to have affected art proper negatively--in my judgement--is the impact of the likes of Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Marcel Duchamp. But that's just my personal perspective. I remain, more or less, with the values of the abstract expressionists who dominated painting in the days (1950s) when I was an art student in Los Angeles and Mexico City.
Technology can permit new ways of expression, but I cannot see how this in itself could constrain artists who prefer to work with more "primitive" instrumentalities, as long as they can transcend the demands of the market.
It's critical to think of art as something very distinct from the industry that has engulfed it. They are no more similar than are canned food and french cuisine.