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i think contemporary art’s obsession with meaning is weird, given that it’s not actually very good at communicating meaning.

(disclaimer. this doesnt apply to all contemporary art. there are a bunch of people out there making nice pictures and i respect that. this isnt about that.)

basically, contemporary art, as a movement, emphasises meaning, having a message, communicating something, over what your art looks like. which i mean, that’s fine if you want to do that. i wont stop you. but if you’re going to emphasise meaning over aesthetics, you need to do a good job with your meaning. i dont mean like, coming up with some revolutionary new idea. contemporary art is great at that. i mean git gud at communication.

contemporary art is made by people with an art education, for people with an art education. it is not understandable by people without an art education (ie. most people) AND/OR without reading the title/artist statement. that is… a fundamental failure to communicate, imo. if people can’t understand your artwork JUST BY LOOKING AT/EXPERIENCING your artwork, it’s failed. i don’t care how great art world people think it is, if no one else gets it it’s not very good. you’re not actually saying anything to most people.

this also makes art seem elitist and pretentious. it’s why lots of people just dont give a shit about art. it doesnt look good and they dont get it, so they get nothing out of it. it does nothing for them, why would they like it?

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thinking abt art in internet culture vs digital art/net art/cyber art/u kno, what the art world thinks of as digital art

(altho. when am i not thinking about this)

like. im finally doing an art history course about this. and it’s not that anything in the course is wrong, it’s that it’s very much not the whole picture. it’s a very narrow part of the picture. they’re not even deliberately excluding art in internet culture, i dont think, they literally don’t know it exists. which is wild to me! how can you be an art history lecture and not know about all this art people are making right now!!!

but like, last week’s lecture was on themes of the body. which like. yeah that’s a thing in contemporary art stuff. but you know, it’s really not a thing in art in internet culture? there is similar stuff, but it’s much more about identity than body. like sonas and stuff. but then like, sonas come from furry culture im pretty sure, and furry culture is into that i think partially bc like… there’s a lot of queer furries, autistic furries, furries with gender stuff. i dont know that it’s specifically/originally an artistic decision. altho it is an influence! furries have been hugely influential in art in internet culture!

but like, the idea of the body isn’t a thing, so much. or at least not enough of a thing to have a whole lecture about.

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me: oh boy! ive been painting for hours! i feel like ive done so much work! lets just turn off the sketch layers to see my progress…

me: (:

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i think one of the biggest disconnects between contemporary art, and art in internet culture, as art movements, is the meaning thing. 

basically: contemporary art is made by people with art degrees. whether intentional or not, a lot of it is only really understandable by people with art degrees. it’s about the message and the meaning as much or more than what the artwork looks like/sounds like/whatever. 

contemporary art has a Reputation among people who are not in the art world. people dont get it/think it’s ugly/think it’s pretentious/etc. obviously not all contemporary artwork, but you get the idea. i think contemporary art (but also earlier movements that were kinda doing similar things) also kinda has issues where like… if the idea is the important thing, youve gotta come up with a whole new idea that no one’s had before for every artwork. so you end up with a ton of art which is shocking for the sake of being shocking etc. which for me is just kinda… yaaaaaaawn. edgelord stuff. anyway.

art in internet culture absolutely, 100%, has its roots in fanart of one kind or another. you don’t make fanart, generally, because you have some statement to make about society – you make it because you like the thing. that’s it. artists in internet culture also mostly dont have art degrees – they have the same amount of art/art history knowledge as the average person. which lets them make art without centuries of artwank baggage!! that’s so cool!! but it also makes art that is easily understood and liked by the average person. 

i have no idea what anish kapoor’s bean is supposed to be about, but i sure as heck know what’s going on with someone’s drawing of charizard. it’s about charizard. they probably like charizard. there’s not some super deep meaning there. even the stuff which does have extra meaning to the artist – because of course people make stuff with more meaning – it’s based on the foundation of “drawing a picture that looks neat” rather than “saying something”. i might not know what was going on in your life when you drew that vent art, but it’s still a cool looking demon wolf oc.

also, im not sure how to connect it exactly, but it is related, people making art on the internet generally start comparatively young (12yos drawing is not uncommon. that is so young in the scheme of things) and start by being bad. and being bad at art in internet culture is like…. your friends are also bad at art, but you’re having fun, and there’s art just like yours, some a little better, some a little worse, all over the place, literally everywhere. and like. it’s the two cakes thing. i dont want to see the one good, best picture of karkat. i want to see all of them!! i want to keep seeing pictures of karkat!! i dont care if some of them aren’t perfect. 

compare that to being a professional artist, where you get popular, maybe, with your best work only, as an adult. and you only see others’ good stuff. idk, it’s different.

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one of the things i dont really like about contemporary art is the constant need for everything to have a message or a meaning or whatever. 

like, i dont have an issue if that’s what you want to do with your art, go for it, but i dont want to do that with my art, and it kinda feels like it’s forced. ALSO a lot of art like that seems to be made entirely by and for people with art degrees, like… people should not need a degree to Get your artwork. 

i have been informed by my lecturers that if i do a painting for my major final, i will need to justify it to the painting and drawing lecturers, not just the video/animation ones (video/animation, my major, is kinda more focused on animation/vfx industry, whereas drawing and painting are for people who want to be artists) and like, i want to be an artist, because i cant really not be an artist, but i dont want to have to come up with a bunch of artwank to get grades. and i kind of get why they do that? it’s a university, they have to give grades, adding a meaning is kinda like going above and beyond, so they give more marks for that. for having ur art relate to art history or whatever.

anyway “i drew a dragon because i like dragons” should be, by itself, enough justification for any artwork.

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one thing that sucks about being into art in internet culture is like. the whole reason im into in like, an academic sense, is that there is shit all in an academic sense and i think that’s a goddamn crime. but like… that does not mesh at all with trying to talk about shit in acadamia/the art world. they have all these structures and stuff that they rate importance by or whatever, and art in internet culture just does not have that, at all. 

and i mean, that’s part of why it’s so interesting!!! it’s art, fantastic art, that does not pull from centuries of art history!! it’s got whole new ideas and ways of doing things!! people view art differently!!! i love it!!! 

but people are like “oh who are the famous artists” and like uhhhhh… well i like homestuck fanart… 

like there are no people who are legit famous and known by everyone. sure, people are popular! but it just doesnt work like that. it just doesnt. (and here i could talk about one of the most interesting things about art in internet culture, which is how everyone is an amateur, essentially, and there is basically no barrier to entry)

anyway like. academics want to see academic writing, not some rando’s blog post. but the rando blog post is saying things that are better and more interesting and more insightful than academia.