The 2014 Art Social Media Glitch: Less is More

So, now my social media class, for which I've devoted all my topics, is over. I could delete this blog, but have enjoyed my ruminations of social and media and the art world.  At this point, I can write on any topic I choose, and I do choose, not to bring in a negativity to the first of 2014, but to continue for now to ponder social media and its advantages and disadvantages for artists.

I do know: It won't go away...it may improve...and there's too much of it.

I remember when MTV came onboard. I'm not a television watcher, but my early stint as a twenty-something University of Tennessee faculty member led me to lunch at a local university tavern. I saw the earliest form of MTV---its quick editing and simulations of an exciting life for a young person--which virtually crossed my eyes.  As a painter who has learned to read visually, I couldn't focus long enough on the effusion of images. I looked around at my contemporaries, who I assumed put in their ritualized weekly television, and they seemed immune to the quick flashes on the screen.  I mentioned the quick editing and the lack of time for one to be visually literate  while watching MTV to my colleagues, but they too were complacent.  Now, as I watch my painting students find images on public domain from which to be inspired and spending time on Facebook reading about museum and gallery exhibitions, I feel thoroughly over-stimulated.  

In this rapid, and possibly vapid, competitive esoteric world, I ponder the future of 21st century art.  Is it as the British philosopher, Roger Scruton, posits, that we are real danger of losing beauty? The abject, theoretically propelled by psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, is thriving nicely in cyberspace.  I do agree with Scruton:   People need beauty. They need the sense of being at home in their world, and being in communication with other souls.  In so many areas of modern life - in pop music, in television and cinema, in language and literature - beauty is being displaced by raucous and attention-grabbing cliches.  We are being torn out of ourselves by the loud and insolent gestures of people who want to seize our attention but to give nothing in return for it. http://www.regentaudio.com/products/roger-scruton-on-beauty

When I read about the eight worse things about the art world, I can hear a resounding sigh of relief from most viewers.  Yet, the art world smugly refuses to give up its lucrative and stylish hold.     http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/doonan/2012/11/art_basel_why_i_m_not_going_hint_it_s_because_the_modern_art_world_is_the.html fb_action_ids=10202498572413024&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210202498572413024%22%3A472334806149923%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210202498572413024%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

University of the Arts professor and critic Camille Paglia also resonates Scruton's plea.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/books/review/glittering-images-by-camille-paglia.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

As artists, let's take this issue to task:  let's really listen, ponder and conceptualize, before it's too late.  

 I'm game.