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I have always been bothered by the relationship between "art, the human creative endeavour" and "art, the business". On one hand the business has allowed artis
by otikik 4y ago
I have always been bothered by the relationship between "art, the human creative endeavour" and "art, the business".
On one hand the business has allowed artists to improve and grow by allowing them to spend their time on their art (instead of working on something else for at least 8 hours per day so they could eat, producing less art and of less quality)
On the other hand, the fact that artists depends on their art doing well finantially in order to sustain themselves must have conditioned their output. The link between "art that sells well" and "art that is actually good" is ... unproven, at best.
This could be an apocalypse, but it could be a good thing as well. Perhaps we do need art that isn't "businessy".
- krapp 4y ago>The link between "art that sells well" and "art that is actually good" is ... unproven, at best. All of the classical works of art people consider "actually good" were done under patronage. The Sistene Chapel ceiling wasn't painted for love or passion or charity. Art and commerce have always been linked, for the simple reason that art takes time, effort and resources which need to be compensated for, so the artist can eat, afford housing or put food on the table. The "starving artist" archetype (and related belief that artists need to suffer to keep their art pure) is a romantic, exploitative fantasy, like that of the "mad genius" linking mental and emotional illness to creativity and insight, and unfortunately common. When AI puts all of the amateur and working artists out of work, they're not going to decide en masse to just stick it out for free, they're just going to quit. You're not going to get more, better art, you're going to get less of any kind of art that isn't machine-generated, because that's how the markets will optimize.