This very first post aims to draw some challenging roadmaps to an as-yet-unrevealed future of the contemporary arts. Whilst experiencing an ongoing digital revolution, painting, one of the most popular art forms, might often seem to be considered an outmoded means of expression. Would an art performance or exhibition, which is not linked with advanced technologies, mean that is not an innovative art form? Maybe not. Computer-based creative practices imply digital technology to capture an array of aesthetic activities. Visitors feel more confident to experience a gallery space via some immersive installations or to engage with artist-developed software used by regular computers. In this new media art, the computer screen error has become a remarkable creative tool for many artists. Has new media art already been an established art form anyhow? Oh! What about the 3D world? I would not say I am quite familiar with that, neither the creative industries. We are still experimenting with 3D video clips or websites. No need to highlight 3D printing.
Despite these concerns, there is a wide range of contemporary artists from different generations who have integrated digital practices into their art such as Ryoji Ikeda from Japan, Daniel Arsham from the States as well as James Faune Walker from the United Kingdom.
James Faure Walker, Lapwings, 2015, archival inkjet print || Source: JFWalker
Ryoji Ikeda (b.1966) creates art based on the electronic errors through the use of media while James Faure Walker (b.1948) has started incorporating computed-based art practices into his painting process using digitally-composed images in his final artwork. His work is infused by physical as well as digital techniques. From another creative perspective, Daniel Arsham (b.1980) intellectually provoked his audience through The Future is Always Now (2014) exhibition at Perrotin gallery in Paris where he showcased ”eroded sculptures, future relics, generate a confusion in the audience’s mind by challenging modern assumption about linear time and history”.
Ryoji Ikeda, The Radar, Site-Installation, 2016 || Source: Ryoji Ikeda
Daniel Arsham, The Future is Now, 2014, Installation View @Perrotin Gallery || Source:BKRW
Undoubtedly, the impact of technological progress signifies one major parameter regarding the way we experience our daily lives. The internet has dominated our world for good and surges reality forward causing an upward movement so quickly that we struggle to create the right vocabulary to describe it. In the light of this contentious framework, the concept of the ‘extreme present’ examines the laborious efforts to retain an equable tempo with the present. Nevertheless, who is capable of predicting something that still does not exist?
An art connoisseur like the Serpentine Galleries co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist can be! Highly acclaimed as one of the key art figures in this industry as well as vigorously committed to the controversial idea of the extreme present, Obrist outlines an immoderate limit beyond which something new will happen. Therefore, being on the verge of some fresh art, he might help us find out what form arts could take in the future.Undoubtedly, the impact of technological progress signifies one major parameter regarding the way we experience our daily lives. The internet has dominated our world for good and surges reality forward causing an upward movement so quickly that we struggle to create the right vocabulary to describe it. In the light of this contentious framework, the concept of the ‘extreme present’ examines the laborious efforts to retain an equable tempo with the present. Nevertheless, who is capable of predicting something that still does not exist.
Considering the Internet’s dynamic and its power to shape cultural trends and shifts, Obrist loves engaging himself with the interactive side of social media. His Instagram account activity seems tireless while he regularly posts a picture of a handwritten note every day as a daily protest against the disappearance of handwriting. Using digital means such social media applications, he curates a kind of social media campaign supporting a physically-minded activity as handwriting. Obrist Instagram account feels like a creative construction of an interactive place for advanced thinking as well as some fanciful curatorial experiment while scrolling down his gallery’s feed.
Obrist also underlines the Internet’s significance in the field of contemporary art, therefore he and co-curator Simon Castets created the 89plus project. Via this innovative platform, emerging artists who were born in or after 1989 (they are considered to be the first generation directly linked with the invention of the internet) are kindly encouraged to share their art practice in case they have incorporated computer-based techniques into their creative practice. Considering that, the internet not only provides new outstanding opportunities for emerging artists but also a virtual space where they can share information as well as work jointly with others.
Overall, an optimistic vision of the future needs us to be open and willing to try unconventional, inventive as well as wide-ranging thinking. ArtVerge’s response to this topic concentrates on the fact that the future is here and now. All we have to do is to firm belief in the reliability and truth of new artists and talents, letting them make how the future seems to be like. The future of Art is a work in progress.