What could possibly keep me from being happy? A guy who has so many gifts to be thankful for? The moment feels "drenched" with complications. New business, very difficult economy. Managing a home which includes a head-strong teenager. But if you were about to take in your last breath, would any of that seem important? Like, just before you died, do you think images of opening a new business is what would flood in, or temporary flare ups with your children? Probably not.
One of the reasons Kevin and I (Kevin Richardson, the Creative Director for Smart Group) started this business is so we could also pursue our artistic hobbies. In other words we didn't want to find ourselves back in the situation we recognized when our art was something we weren't finding time for. So making art is important to insuring my happiness.
My philosophy about a new genre of art is one of the things that integrates with my recent predisposition about internet considerations. You may have seen me mention this new genre I call The Social Media Artist Revolution. It is a revolution to me and yet how often have you heard someone say they're a social media artist? Still there are scads of them, even though they may not call themselves artists. Take for instance the millions of YouTube videos produced by people who obviously love to make funny short videos. Most of these people seem to pursue their interest as a hobby, without any thought to how they'll be "paid back," for their time. If this isn't art, I don't know what is. Certain bloggers too, go after a style of writing with a vengeance, even though hundreds of thousands of them probably have fewer than five readers--talking about a starving artist!
This morning on my facebook page, I posted a series of photos which I made in photoshop. A group of friends and I have a blog called Smiling Heart. One of the authors posted a picture of a cloud which appeared out her office window. In a much earlier post, I had "snatched" a photo from the internet and used it along with a post I submitted, which also depicted a heart in the clouds. Seeing the similarity to the two photos I decided to play with the images in photoshop. Eventually this lead to a short video I produced along with a great saxophone and piano composition snagged off of YouTube. Both the series of photos which I posted on my wall this morning and the video which was shared between blog authors are examples of what I call Social Media Art. These are self expressive art forms, though very non-traditional. This kind of art is quick and exists almost exclusively just on a computer screen. It is shared in the "cloud" of our new web 2.0 world. Anyone can do this and it should bring millions of people together, sharing feelings and being satisfied because it is doing something with your hands.
While many people may debate how much this is really art, I propose that it will be very legitimate and eventually seen in galleries, on large screens and will include mixed media of all kinds, including videography, music, fine art and something new, which we couldn't even imagine yet.
Revolutionary really. What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment