Computers and the Internet may force artists out of the increasingly esoteric discourse of the art world. A broader audience may demand that they reintegrate their work with larger issues related to science, technology, and humanism … Computers may also force radical artists to return to a notion of craft. In the contemporary art world, painstaking studio process often seems to matter less than an up-to-the-minute ironic pose. Artists of the past had to grapple with techniques ranging from draftsmanship to fresco painting if they wanted to achieve greatness. Their creative inheritors may have to master digital tools if they hope to reach beyond the restrictive walls of galleries and museums.
Predictor: Pinchbeck, Daniel
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Daniel Pinchbeck, a New York-based writer and the editor of Open City, a literary and art journal, writes: ”Eventually, computers and the Internet may force artists out of the increasingly esoteric discourse of the art world. A broader audience may demand that they reintegrate their work with larger issues related to science, technology, and humanism. ‘I would like to see a return to that classical breadth of inquiry that artists were able to make in the Renaissance,’ says Michael Joaqun Grey. Computers may also force radical artists to return to a notion of craft. In the contemporary art world, painstaking studio process often seems to matter less than an up-to-the-minute ironic pose. Artists of the past had to grapple with techniques ranging from draftsmanship to fresco painting if they wanted to achieve greatness. Their creative inheritors may have to master digital tools if they hope to reach beyond the restrictive walls of galleries and museums.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: State of the Art: Digital Technology is Eroding the Foundation of the Elite Contemporary Art World – and the Very Concept of Art as a Commodity, Threatening to Make the Overheated Art Market of the ’80s Seem Like the Last Gasp of Tulipomania
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.12/digital.art_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney