I caught up with a friend today. It wasn't so much as a catch up though as a debate over "emergent culture".
The debate was in the context of making art.
The debate was fraught with assumptions about the basics of making art.
How to use materials like paint or pencils on paper.
How to use photoshop. Digital v Fine Art - you really don't want to go there.
Isn't it all a means to an end?
Where does the process of making art start?
Leave out the assumptions of whether it's good or bad art.
Everyone can make a smudge on paper and call it art if it pleases them to put it on the wall of their cafe or TV room - one man's meat is another's poison.
Doesn't it all "emerge" from "perception" and "awareness"?
Everything, not just art, depends on the sharpness and sensitivity of these qualities. But then there's consensus. Is it popular? Is popular art worse or better than fine culture?
I'm sorry but I'm pretty much continually amazed by the lack these qualities - as far as I'm concerned this "emergent culture" of perception blunted by self-interest pervades everything: academia, politics, business, arts, sports ... perhaps mental virus is a better description than emergent culture.
A process of deterioration which must - if there's a future - be balanced by an "emergent culture" with the creative ability to see beyond immediate self-interest.
Perhaps this explains the polls out today that show that the Australian Greens are gaining popularity while support for the two mainstream parties falters.
I'm not actually concerned about the level of skills people have since they can pretty much be developed by anyone with the drive to do so.
But I think it's the lack of "perception" and a mindset fraught with self-serving "assumptions" and a disregard rather than attention to details that lead to situations such as the Louisiana oil spill and the Israeli action against the Gaza aid flotilla.
It irks me when "traditionally trained" artists discard the digital arts because these artists have not got years of training in fine arts.
But I'm also annoyed by digital artists who show a complete lack of understanding of traditional fine art methods.
It seems to be that the two need to learn from each other.