4 ms·

> The main problems are: Those are problems, but I think you're accidentally digging backwards to find them. If you want to make a living in art, selling to c

> The main problems are: Those are problems, but I think you're accidentally digging backwards to find them. If you want to make a living in art, selling to collectors and galleries, it's really not about pragmatic economic concerns like these. It's about having a community of patrons and collectors who can't help but talk about and trade the work at galleries and dinner parties. As that catches, people will inevitably surface the "good stories" and the reproduction of work will be managed in some way. That hasn't happened in a way that's been explosive yet. Once a few superstars wow the right people and see their work anchor major gallery collections, there'll be a lot more room for smaller artists. Personally, I wouldn't overthink the reasons why. Codifying them as "main problems" might just leave you missing opportunity when the winds change.

dahart 8y ago
> I think you’re accidentally digging backwards to find them. You might be completely right. Though I’m not sure I understand what you mean by digging backwards. The problems I see are, of course, the main problems I’ve personally run into. I have a hard time telling a compelling story to someone who doesn’t know anything about computers or math. When I look around, I can see that many other people have the same problem. My point was that generative art is and always has been considered art by some people, but it still has issues convincing traditional artists. > If you want to make a living in art, selling to collectors and galleries, it’s really not about pragmatic economic concerns like these Just curious - have you actually tried selling art? This might be extremely presumptuous, but your statement sounds like lack of experience. It’s almost entirely about pragmatic concerns, so much so that it becomes harder to make art when you need to make a living. There are millions of people trying to make it in the art world and failing. > It’s about having a community of patrons and collectors who can’t help but talk about and trade the work at galleries and dinner parties. I don’t mean this to be rude at all, but this is a pure fantasy. There are almost zero living artists who have this kind of following, the only ones who do are famous, and they didn’t have this before they were famous. > As that catches, people will inevitably surface the “good stories” That depends on you giving them the good stories, right? > Codifying them as “main problems” might just leave you missing opportunity when the winds change. You might be right, point taken. They’re my “main problems”, and not necessarily yours or the future’s. However, if you look around, you’ll see that the problems I called out have been problems for a long time, and they are problems with other genres too. Photography is also harder to value, because of it’s reproducibility, which is why it has never (yet) reached quite the same status as a Rembrandt painting or a Michelangelo sculpture. Hopefully you’re right and in the future, we can value the creativity itself, rather than the object.
- swatcoder 8y ago
  > Just curious - have you actually tried selling art? Indeed. But I understand what you're seeing in my comment. As a restatement: your art's marketability is firstly dependent on your style/genre/technique being in fashion. Generative art is a curiosity, but still isn't in fashion. You and I are probably not the ones to bring it into fashion; that'll happen when/if somebody well-connected pitches their work's story very well or a collector/curator pitches a their discovery story very well. Presumably, we both have better things to do than position ourselves for that, because it's a lifelong effort and a risky one. So in the meantime, it's sort of a waiting game where we're left to either do our thing or direct ourselves towards a different style. That said, stories do matter. But it's not hard to identify them, even for generative art. They just don't become the "good art stories" you're talking about until somebody creates the market and sets a standard. And pragmatics like reproducibility and constraint absolutely matter, but again, the standard for what that means in generative art will be some collector/curator's discovery as the market develops. It's not the detail we need to worry about, because we can always make our work constrained in the necessary way when the time comes. I guess what I'm saying is that being an experimental/emerging artist sometimes runs orthogonal to creating a market for our art. Creating that market (by struggling against "main problems") is a lot of work on it's own and takes away from either the making of art or from other parts of life. And yes, it's frustrating.
  - dahart 8y ago
    Hey, thanks for taking the time to clarify! > I guess what I'm saying is that being an experimental/emerging artist sometimes runs orthogonal to creating a market for our art. Yes, I agree completely. I see your point more clearly that aside from value & narrative, there needs to be an environment that already supports generative art, both for its value and its narrative. This is what you meant about community, I misunderstood. You are right. I think we're getting there, I'm fairly optimistic here. It seems like generative art is considered fine art by enough people that there's no longer a debate about whether it's art. Now we just need to wait and watch the best stuff bubble up.

dahart 8y ago

> I think you’re accidentally digging backwards to find them. You might be completely right. Though I’m not sure I understand what you mean by digging backwards. The problems I see are, of course, the main problems I’ve personally run into. I have a hard time telling a compelling story to someone who doesn’t know anything about computers or math. When I look around, I can see that many other people have the same problem. My point was that generative art is and always has been considered art by some people, but it still has issues convincing traditional artists. > If you want to make a living in art, selling to collectors and galleries, it’s really not about pragmatic economic concerns like these Just curious - have you actually tried selling art? This might be extremely presumptuous, but your statement sounds like lack of experience. It’s almost entirely about pragmatic concerns, so much so that it becomes harder to make art when you need to make a living. There are millions of people trying to make it in the art world and failing. > It’s about having a community of patrons and collectors who can’t help but talk about and trade the work at galleries and dinner parties. I don’t mean this to be rude at all, but this is a pure fantasy. There are almost zero living artists who have this kind of following, the only ones who do are famous, and they didn’t have this before they were famous. > As that catches, people will inevitably surface the “good stories” That depends on you giving them the good stories, right? > Codifying them as “main problems” might just leave you missing opportunity when the winds change. You might be right, point taken. They’re my “main problems”, and not necessarily yours or the future’s. However, if you look around, you’ll see that the problems I called out have been problems for a long time, and they are problems with other genres too. Photography is also harder to value, because of it’s reproducibility, which is why it has never (yet) reached quite the same status as a Rembrandt painting or a Michelangelo sculpture. Hopefully you’re right and in the future, we can value the creativity itself, rather than the object.

swatcoder 8y ago
> Just curious - have you actually tried selling art? Indeed. But I understand what you're seeing in my comment. As a restatement: your art's marketability is firstly dependent on your style/genre/technique being in fashion. Generative art is a curiosity, but still isn't in fashion. You and I are probably not the ones to bring it into fashion; that'll happen when/if somebody well-connected pitches their work's story very well or a collector/curator pitches a their discovery story very well. Presumably, we both have better things to do than position ourselves for that, because it's a lifelong effort and a risky one. So in the meantime, it's sort of a waiting game where we're left to either do our thing or direct ourselves towards a different style. That said, stories do matter. But it's not hard to identify them, even for generative art. They just don't become the "good art stories" you're talking about until somebody creates the market and sets a standard. And pragmatics like reproducibility and constraint absolutely matter, but again, the standard for what that means in generative art will be some collector/curator's discovery as the market develops. It's not the detail we need to worry about, because we can always make our work constrained in the necessary way when the time comes. I guess what I'm saying is that being an experimental/emerging artist sometimes runs orthogonal to creating a market for our art. Creating that market (by struggling against "main problems") is a lot of work on it's own and takes away from either the making of art or from other parts of life. And yes, it's frustrating.
- dahart 8y ago
  Hey, thanks for taking the time to clarify! > I guess what I'm saying is that being an experimental/emerging artist sometimes runs orthogonal to creating a market for our art. Yes, I agree completely. I see your point more clearly that aside from value & narrative, there needs to be an environment that already supports generative art, both for its value and its narrative. This is what you meant about community, I misunderstood. You are right. I think we're getting there, I'm fairly optimistic here. It seems like generative art is considered fine art by enough people that there's no longer a debate about whether it's art. Now we just need to wait and watch the best stuff bubble up.