Over the course of the last decade tremendous strides have been accomplished in the democratization of art, especially technology based art, like photography. Concurrently and symbiotically the democratization of the distribution of art has followed the exponential growth in the number of available images, or videos, or songs, or poems, or stories.
Two very dramatic and "Smithian" results have occurred. The first due to the magnitudes of increased supply; the currency value of any particular work has decreased by magnitudes. The second and perhaps most important is, creation of art no longer requires a person to accept or even address the philosophy of an art. Here the quality of the art itself is the sole market force. Like an infinite number (or even a very large number given the new developments in language acquisition) of chimps at computers running Word 2007 and connected to the internet can produce the Wikipedia in short order, so does art rise to the surface of the mass of human accomplishment. That is, art or the Wikipedia are both of value to the human spirit regardless of how they may have come to be.
Some argue erroneously that cheapening of art has diminished the quality, that two hundred million bloggers makes writing valueless and inartistic or 12 trillion images does the same, the opposite is true. Of those trillions of words and images, so many more great words and beautiful pieces have emerged than perhaps the species deserves. We are blessed by access to our creative side(s) and by access to the creativity (even accidental or unconscious) of our worldwide neighbors. True there is a lot (ok most is) of self-important prattle and ultimately valueless, but we don't shutdown Walmarts either.
A consequence has been many artist writers, photographers, and others can no longer get adequate compensation for their work. Always undervalued for their contributions to society (unless lucky to have a good agent and market) until they are dead and easily exploited, artists are now desperately in need of good government; societal patronage. Especially in societies like ours and those in the Middle East dominated by religious fundamentalists where a concept is a gift of God, these require state sponsorship not only of priests, but poets as well.
In the mean time a nasty outgrowth of the changing markets is commercial elitism. Whining commercialists like Andrew Keen, face of a corporate patrimony, who are losing market share to better, or obscure or even worse, amateurs , are writing books decrying the loss of culture(while continuing their blogs and websites) others shape gangs like a group of photographers and their media puppeteers to make "rules" of the trade only applicable to non-party members to hold their market from other "charitable" organizations . Keen has no trouble using died penniless Kafka's name to make a buck, while crying about others plagiarism and theft. Those elitist photographers haven't a problem torturing caged animals to stage a scene for a "wildlife" photo, but, if a non-party member would do such a thing it would be evil incarnate: which it is for everybody regardless of affiliation.
Market forces will eventually supplant fascist elitists, sure some will make millions, but eventually most will get their due. And market forces will eventually separate quality art from its neighbors. And narcissism? Well, it takes a tremendous effort to keep up ones blogs and websites, especially if there isn't any feedback. Look for the chaff to blow away in the steady winds and artists to die penniless, like they always have.
© Copyright 2007 Gregory Gusse, All Rights Reserved
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