Conceptual art, predictive vision?

Arthur Danto is a skeptic about predicting the future through art. But he does not mean a metaphorical and anticipatory vision, a vision that reaches into emotion and overwhelms it with the feeling of inexplicable emptiness that the future generates. According to your hypothesis so He asserts that art is representation, and analyzes projected objects or images as future He finds, rightly, that they are very different from the real future.

Visionary artist Albert Robida began publishing a series titled last centurywhich he intended to reflect what the world would be like in 1952. Although many of the wonders to come appear (telephone telescopes, television, flying machines, underwater megacities), the way much of what is shown is such that the images themselves unambiguously refer to the time in which they were created. (…) The works of Pollock, de Kooning, Gottlieb, and Klein that were shown in the most avant-garde galleries in 1952 would have been unimaginable in 1882.. Nothing belongs to its era so much as an era thrusts into its future: Buck Rogers brings the decorative languages ​​of the 1930s into the 21st century, making Rockefeller Center and the Ford his own today; 1950s science fiction novels of distant worlds feature the sexual morality of the Eisenhower era, as well as the dry martinis and techno-suits worn by astronauts, which come from the T-shirts of the era. (Danto, A., After the end of art(2003, Baidos Editions)

As we have seen, the first thing to disappear in conceptual art was the body, the body whose origin we questioned.. We are physical beings, and the disappearance of the body means our disappearance, the contempt of what is human, of that body built “in His image and likeness.” The body disappears not only in the work, but also in its execution. The artist no longer shares body and soul in the execution, as Michelangelo so brilliantly said in the quote above. The work will be readysomething that already existed for a different purpose than the one it would have in action.

The denial of art itself, carried out by replacing the polyphonic image with the monolithic concept, the worship of meaning and the abandonment of metaphor, are all signs of a future in which we will no longer be present. Conceptual art is the projected vision of a digital world, replacing us as menas heroes of life, which will be progressive and has already begun.

Power is shifting, and there are financial unions larger than many countries. The qubit, a quantum unit that doubles the capacity of bits and will replace them, is being developed, generating an almost infinite world, where we do not know how our understanding will develop. Companies are radically changing the way they work, becoming digital and robotic. There are fewer and fewer people in economic activity.

At the same time, the birth rate declines. Algorithms trap people in their preferences, in their own world, and only show them what interests them. There are no surprises in a finite universe. The spectrum of curiosity and knowledge is closed.

Faced with the human-born dilemma of whether science and the tools derived from it will be used for good or evil, “transhumanism” (abbreviation H+) arises, an ideology or religion that attempts to distinguish technological performance ethically. Series black mirror, Which shows that the Orwellian world dominated by technology is closer to reality: China has a citizen registration system that evaluates the behavior of each individual in society.

Digital transformation gradually encompasses and includes our life, science, law, religion, politics, philosophy and, of course, our art. Major production companies, such as Disney and others, have scorned the opportunity to acquire technological platforms such as TikTok or YouTube, on the grounds that feeding them with content is expensive and almost impossible. instead of, The tech industries realized that content would be created by everyday people, and that was the case.

In 1928, Paul Valéry predicted that the power of technology would mean a future full of great changes: “Neither matter nor space nor time will be the same.”. He tells us that all art will change because “its material component will change profoundly, and the concept of art will likely change profoundly.” (Paul Valéry, 1928, Invasion of ubiquitous presence)

Walter Benjamin suggests that the “mechanical” reproduction of a work of art eliminates its “aura,” the aura value that depends on it being unique. The aura takes us to the Greek icon, to the cult, to the work that is seen as sacred in itself, beyond what it represents. The aura is an object of veneration and ritual. With reproduction it is destined to disappear And to be replaced by the social value that democratizes art. (Walter Benjamin, 1935, The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction)

Are we the new iconoclasts?

Will the digital world be able to maintain the aura? Technically, this could be done through Blockchain or other future technologies; But would it be beneficial for the digital community to preserve the sanctity of the artwork? Hasn’t value been replaced long ago by the opinion of curators and the market, as Danto says?

In his book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” (2008), Yuval Harari tells us that “in the 21st century, art will also have a fundamental role. The question is who will make this art.” This is the most important question and from here many questions arise: Will there be artists in the future? Will they be replaced by regular people uploading content to platforms? Will artificial intelligence “AI” become the champion of art? Will artists give commands to a digital robot to execute artwork on a screen or printer?

In the aforementioned text, Harari also adds the following postulates: “As algorithms become more powerful, we will move further and further away from human ideals.” / “Intelligence is separate from consciousness.” https://www.perfil.com/ “Unconscious but very smart algorithms could soon know us better.”

Is the disappearance of the body in conceptual art an announcement of the eclipse we will experience under digital transformation? Does conceptual art warn us that life will be characterized by artificial intelligence and that we will fade into the background with little vision?

Our faith, our libido, God, horror, the torment of mystery, the darkness of death, terrifying chaos, and the search for a universe that consoles will no longer exist in art.. Where will they be? Will the human body in this digital world be an inert body that does not generate symbols or metaphors?

Is it worth the warning of conceptual art, which warns us that the body will disappear, that we will be in the background, obscured by our digital creativity? Have we “created” a golem that will replace us body and soul?