An introdution to inportant cultural changes that impact upon the way visual practitioners might consider their role.

1. Modernism and After: (Vis Com)
Lecture 9: The Future

4. WEB 2.0

5. WEB 2.0
Netscape vs. Google
Netscape Google
• Sold as software • Delivered as a service
• Series of tools • Database management
• Browser: Allowing you to • Contained within a Browser:
interact with information. becoming integral to the
information.

6. WEB 2.0
Amazon
Amazon sold the same and was provided the same
information as its rivals, but unlike its rivals it made
better use of the internet.
• They allow customers to submit reviews.
• They publish customer ratings.
• They prioritise popular items.
• They build recommended lists and show you
items related to your last purchase.

7. The Wonders of Wikipedia
“An average of nearly two thousand English-
Language articles are posted every day on every
imaginable subject. That adds up to 730,000 new
articles each year. When you factor in the average
growth rate you can count on Wikipedia boasting
more than 5 million articles by 2010, and that’s a
conservative estimate.”
(Tapscott and Williams 2007, p. 76)

9. WEB 2.0
O’Reilly’s summary.
• Services, not packaged software.
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data
sources that get richer as more people use
them.
• Trusting users as co-developers.
• Harnessing collective intelligence.
• Leveraging the long tail through customer
service.
• Software above the level of a single device.

10. WEB
1.0
WEB 2.0
WEB 9.0
WEB 5.0

12. “… the more vantage points from which
a complex problem is seen, easier it
becomes to solve.”
(Leadbeater 2008, p.72)

13. Lawrence Lessig has
worked for a long time to
try to preserve the
internet as a site for free,
shared information.

14. Business consultant Daniel Pink (2006) in his book A Whole New Mind argues that we are
moving from the ‘Information Age to the Conceptual Age’ ‘in which people from all walks of life
will succeed when they behave like artists who integrate left-brain with right-brain thinking. . ..
Conceptual Age creators and empathizers integrate high-tech abilities with high-touch and high-
concept abilities’ (Alexenberg, Mel (ed.) (2008) Educating Artists for the Future. Bristol: Intellect,
p 12).

15. Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss sees the artist as ‘an intermediary, a
catalyst between diverse fields of knowledge, ways of thinking, social
models, and solution strategies based upon cooperation, communication,
and interaction. Digital network culture not only changes modes of media
production and distribution, but it transforms art from object making to
art as processes of creating “immaterial” rhizome-like structures of
remotely connected individuals in online communities. “Print and radio
tell; stage and film show; cyberspace embodies”’ (Alexenberg, 2008, p.
15).

16. How can art draw on and link to the radical
transformation through science and
technology that are changing our ‘basic
philosophical ideas about the nature of our
physical world, time and space, the nature
of life and intelligence, and the limits in our
abilities to transform the world and
humanity’? (ibid)

17. Harvard psychologist Howard
Gardner (1999) has stated
that artists have always
needed spatial intelligence. In
future, it is necessary for this
intelligence ‘to be combined
in multiple configurations
with bodily-kinesthetic,
logical-mathematical,
linguistic, musical, naturalist,
intrapersonal, interpersonal,
spiritual, and existential
intelligences’ (Alexenberg, Douglas Gordon,
2008, p.12). Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain,
as Andy Warhol, as Myra Hindley,
as Marilyn Monroe, 1996

18. Following Thomas Friedman (2000) in his book The
Lexus and the Olive Tree. Understanding Globalisation
Alexenberg suggests that ‘artists faced with the
challenge of finding a healthy balance between
preserving a sense of identity and community in an era
of globalisation will need to learn to create artworks
that combine pride in roots with an overview of the
world as shared by others’ (Alexenberg, 2008, p 13).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbVF_ghWPMk
(Video based on ideas in the book)

19. • What can we learn from
transcultural dialogues
between arts
practitioners and
educators from countries
such as India, China and
so on?
• How do they approach
and think about art in a
way that challenges
Western ways of
practising art?

20. Drawing on computer scientist David
Gelernter (1998) Alexenberg also argues that
‘artists will need to enter into the heart of the
technology they are using to locate its inner
beauty as a powerful source of their
creativity.’ (ibid)

21. Aaron Marcus (graphic designer)
advises students, ‘not to be so
immersed in tools and techniques
that they forget the larger issues
of theory and practice, to expect
the unexpected, to realize that
help may come when most
needed from unexpected sources,
to facilitate people making smarter
decisions faster, to think about
other cultures and times, to
conceptualize everything in a
system of interrelated parts, to
scan the horizon to discern future
developments in knowledge-
oriented communications, and to
cultivate a terminology to quickly,
efficiently, and successfully
describe their work’ (Alexenberg,
2008, p 22).

22. • ‘Artists have a unique and totally
freeway of understanding and
analyzing society, and consequently
of being engaged with it. … art can
interact among all the diverse
spheres of human activity that form
society, and is thereby a generator for
responsible transformation of
society.’
• Artist Michelangelo Pistoletto,
founder of Cittedellarte, a centre in
Biella, Italy, ‘to inspire artists to
produce responsible change in
society through transdisciplinary
ideas and creative projects’.
Alexenberg, Mel (ed.) (2008)
Educating Artists for the Future.
Bristol: Intellect, p 12
http://www.cittadellarte.it/

23. Future Me
• Create a self-portrait as you
see yourself now, including
your personal and creative
talents and aspirations. How
do these relate to broader
cultural developments?
• Create a second self-portrait
as you see yourself in five
years …
• (The ‘portrait’ does not have
to follow a conventional
portrait format. It could be a
map, a comic book character
and so on.)
Matthew Barney Cremaster Cycle
(1994-2002)

24. References
• Alexenberg, Mel (2008) Educating Artists for the Furture: Learning
at the Intersections of art Science, Technology and Culture. Bristol,
Intellect Ltd.
• Bello, Walden (2009) Climate and Capitalism in Copenhagen. In
Foreign Policy in Focus, available at
http://www.fpif.org/articles/climate_and_capitalism_in_copenhage
n [accessed 22/03/2010]
• Leadbeater, C (2008) We-Think. London, Profile Books Ltd.
• O’Reilly, Tim (2005) What is Web 2.0? Available at
http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html [accessed
22/03/2010]
• Tapscott, D and Anthony D. Williams. (2008) Wikinomics: How Mass
Collaboration Changes Everything. London, Atlantic Books.