Art is a tool that when correctly utilized may bring about a basic unity of mankind and foster an instantaneous picture of the state of society as a whole. McLuhan thought the artist to be an essential remedy for the chaos and anxiety that new media revolutions brought about within the human nervous system. “Media, or the extensions of man, are “make happen” agents, not “make aware” agents” (McLuhan, 1964). Hence the role of an artist is that of an alarm system or, in a certain sense, a whistle-blower. Ideally, as the chains of new technology strengthen around the user’s neck, the production of quality art ought to be in proportionate and exponential growth. Yet, digital media is a barrier to creative resolution due to the overstimulation of information which in turn manufactures confusion, passivity and a blurred line between art and its knock-offs. The artist, thus, struggles to retain, regain and maintain the integral interplay of sense in a world that seeks madness by a simple road of media isolation.
Since the nature of art is such that it cannot be contained in two separate, well-defined categories, I will use the distinction of good and bad art only as a guideline for this article. Henceforth, what I mean by ‘good art’ is institutionalized and well-regarded art that moves the observer from a submissive to a active stance. Likewise, bad art is a blatant re-representation of someone else’s idea or a piece that lacks depth, and it will be often a referent to “Internet art”.
The artist could be perceived as the architect of the anti-environment, for art naturally arises as a commentary and criticism of the current environment. During the Industrial Revolution and Marxism, the working class had been neglected in terms of rights by the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, hence art was interested in realism and exhibiting the struggles of the workers. Presently, we are subjects to a very demanding digital revolution and the general environment is heavily media-dependent. Hence, contemporary artists aim to create an anti-environment by creating a literal spectacle of how technology influences us. The aim is to reform society to a new environment (that of media awareness), while using the old environment as a material or building block. From here on stems the idea of the artist being a middle man between society and that which disrupts it.
Wyndham Lewis once said that “the artist is engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he alone lives in the present” (McLuhan, 1997). In a sense, the notion that the artist is in the contemporary use of his senses is what separates the symbolic individual from common man. Perceptual skills of ordinary members of society are overlaid by memories of the past. Present man is so preoccupied with memories and historic events that he fails to be cognizant of disturbances (i.e. computers, social media outlets) in his own time. McLuhan said that “we march backwards into the future” (McLuhan, 1967), as we find ourselves attached to objects of the past. This tendency to cling to the past could arise from our natural necessity of a metaphorical anchor in a sea of anxiety or an attempt to avert from unfortunate historic occurrences (i.e. the Great Wars, slavery) in the future.
The artist’s role may be viewed as the breaker of the rear-view mirror that frames the present, but he or she is not necessarily understood in their own time. James Joyce’s Ulysses was heavily scrutinized by critics in the 20s, censored for the nature of vice it displayed and the overall difficulty of comprehension. One of the reasons for this may be that the novel is a demonstration of a stream of consciousness that was contained, yet locked away, in 1920s man’s subconscious. Nowadays, Ulysses is considered one of the greatest products of modernist literature and it’s regarded as a “demonstration and summation of the entire [modernist] movement” (Beebe, 1972).
Even before Joyce there have been individuals in every culture who were aware of factors that indirectly influence the thought and behaviour of society. To best exhibit such an idea, McLuhan raises the example of King Lear as an “elaborate case history of people translating themselves out of an old world of roles into the new world of jobs” (McLuhan, 1967). This was an unconscious societal process that was both exhibited and denuded in its entirety in virtue of artistic vision. King Lear was able to demonstrate the change from medieval to Renaissance time and space, not only to historians, but to those who were living it. It was like an abstract to the common folk, for Shakespeare wasn’t writing about the past or the future, but focusing on the present.
Similarly to James Joyce and Shakespeare, McLuhan is one of the literary artists of his time who successfully predicted the dawn of the digital era and its implications. In the Gutenberg Galaxy he refers to Greek art and compares it to a mosaic where “coexistence and interplay among the figures in the flat field create a multi-levelled and multi-sensious awareness” (McLuhan, 1967). Similarly, the Galaxy has been repeatedly compared to a mosaic in light of the writing style and presentation. Its complicated structure coaxes the reader to develop a heightened awareness without which the underlining message of the book would be an enigma. Counterblast (McLuhan, Parker) is yet another example where writing literally escapes the linear composition of print and undertakes a much more ambiguous and stimulative form that engages the reader on a multi-sensory level.
The role of artists, not only in literature, but in all categories: visual arts, music, drama, poetry, photography; must rise to the occasion of becoming an influentially positive, contributive and supportive element to members of a society. With regards to the Internet takeover, 99% of Canadian youth has access to the Internet on a daily basis, however on the functional level Canadian literacy is doing “fine”. In statements like these there can be certain bias, for the quality of the literature that’s being read is undetermined, and the attention span and reflective abilities are not done justice by. Therefore, I maintain that to best understand media’s effects on the artist and the audience member, one must turn to the realm of visual art.
There is a certain reversal of roles that took place over the temporal plane and caused the artist to “surrender” the unique self. The symbolists began to work backwards from effect to cause in the manufacturing of the art product. This “new stream of consciousness” was art’s defense mechanism of avoiding the impersonal dynamic of the assembly line. Part of the problem of today’s artistic quality decline is that we still work within the same model, yet the environment has shifted. Present individual is far more calculative than industrial man. For example, before sharing something on Facebook, one would often consider the best time to publish in light of the highest traffic, and the response/likes the post might receive. This is a careful estimation of the possible effects as produced by the cause of self-publication. Hence, the effect determines the execution of the cause. Similarly, in art the artist still exhibits the effects, rather than the preceding causes, but in terms of Internet art the message is often carried out by a shallow symbolic representation.
There is a huge prevalence of art on the World Wide Web that displays the gruesome effects technology oppresses us with. These contemporary pieces, although frightening, are overlooked by the common audience member, for four reasons. Firstly, an overall impersonalization of the art piece is created by the distortion via the digital screen. This forces the viewer to engage on a single sensory level and therefore voids the artwork of meaning. Secondly, the overall popularity of the topic and its inevitable repetitiveness causes it to be dull. Thirdly, the blunt spelling out of the cause-effect relationship strips it from a mosaic-like formation and thus fails to puzzle the viewer. And finally, on a fundamental level the majority knows the effects of technology, therefore the visualization of the consequences aren’t particularly shocking. Hence, contemporary artists have never been more challenged in grasping the audience attention. The symbolist is competing with highly enabling technological advancements for the consideration of an exceedingly educated society. The inability of the hybrid to break this stigmatic wall is the reason why his art is “bad”. Moreover, through the repetitive pattern art berefts itself of imagination or spirit, gradually transforming into “a shallow abstract translation of a constellation of enormous [technical] capabilities, devoid of any creative substance”. After all, Van Gogh’s Starry Night is awe-inspiring for its self-expression, and no reproduction, no matter how skillfully executed, can match its greatness.
Looking into the 60s rear-view mirror, one can witness how Andy Warhol played with the line between popular culture and self-expression and capitalized on the newly developed concept of Pop Art (1961), an active commentary on the economic state of mass-produced commercial goods. In his art pieces, he often dabbled with photography, silk screening and printmaking, incorporating consumer products such as Campbell Soup and Coca Cola in his works. The Brillo Soap Pads Boxes (1964) were institutionalized, and thus deemed good art, for they caused puzzlement, reflection and self-realization within the audience. While the art lover was questioning why that was considered art, Andy Warhol was holding up a mirror and showing them their newly found consumer nature. In the end, artists like Warhol, along with Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Keith Haring and more “referenc[ed] consumer products, [and] practic[ed] corporate-style branding and self-promotion,” even before society was aware of the upcoming mass capitalization of markets.
These names stick out because the artists have created a steady portfolio that harbours a certain style-format and their message, together with its deliverance, undertakes a rather radicalized composition. I do not infer that all contemporary art is bad, of course. Banksy is a notorious British graffiti artist, or a “hooligan” to the more ignorant ones. Keeping away from the digital self-publications of his stencils, he undertakes a more direct and outrageous approach by spraying his personal societal accounts on public property. His work is an extensive commentary on the corrupt political and socio-economic state shown through the inscription of subconscious innuendos. Similarly, Polly Nor is a rising Instagram artists who exhibits women and their demons in a questionable juxtaposition where the correlation between the two is uncanny in the sense that it is unclear whether it is an image women inflict on themselves, or a satanic role that has been imposed on them by society.
So perhaps my initial hypothesis was wrong and there are still just as successful artists that help us achieve momentary awareness. Yet because of the accessibility the Internet offers for self-publication, they compete for the audience’s attention in a much larger pool of wannabes and copy cats. It is an evident possibility that the problem stems from the audience alone. Centralized methods of communication and abstract ionizing of the machine have a dehumanizing effect on life and contemporary man is exposed to media at a 360°.Thus, the influx of information and overstimulation of the senses have festered a passive servo organism and a self-centered textbook narcissist. In a sense, the artists inhabits a world that is unfavourably predisposed to art itself and perhaps he or she is weakened and repressed by the implications of digital technology.
Bibliography:
Beebe, Maurice. “Ulysses and the Age of Modernism.” James Joyce Quarterly 10.1, Ulysses 50th Anniversary Issue (1972): 172-88. JSTOR. Web.
Hjartarson, Paul Ivar, Gregory Brian Betts, and Kristine Smitka. Counter-blasting Canada: Marshall McLuhan, Wyndham Lewis, Wilfred Watson, and Sheila Watson. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: U of Alberta, 2016. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: U of Toronto, 1962. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall. “The Electronic Age – The Age of Implosion.” Media Research: Technology, Art, Communication. Comp. Michel A. Moos. Amsterdam: G & B Arts, 1997. 16-38. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. Ed. Jerome Agel. New York: Bantan, 1967. Print.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York and Scarborough, Ontario: New American Library.
originalmess 