art is fake
Cobbled together from a bunch of shitposts.
I’ve been thinking about why tech workers are considered more fungible than artists (at low to medium levels, anyway). The logic is that, though anyone sufficiently skilled could write that program, nobody else will create specifically the art that you would.
Sure, the code you and your competitor would write won’t be identical — you might even use different languages — but it’ll serve the same function and its output will be the same.
We consider the specific art (the brushstrokes, the color, the sequence of words) the artist’s output, but maybe that’s wrong: the output is the emotion evoked, the thoughts evoked. If that’s the case, artists are a lot more replaceable than they seem. There are thousands of them, and most emotional manipulation is cheap and easy.
Any picture that makes you think about trees and feel sad would then be approximately equivalent to every other picture that makes you think about trees and feel sad. A specific piece of art isn’t necessarily more unique than a specific haystack.
Some groups have exceptional aesthetic coordination. Often they’ll signal their affiliation with avatars which are, to the outsider, basically interchangeable.
If we view art itself as the output, the way to stay relevant is to hone your skills, use techniques with high barriers to entry, and keep your methods secret.
If feelings are the output, the way to stay relevant is to explore fringe mindspace, constantly innovate, or deal in extreme taboos.
Note that these paradigms aren’t actually in conflict with each other, as far as practical advice goes. However, they both become difficult to satisfy as more people enter the art world.
It’s as of yet more difficult to quantify feelings than it is to observe the output of a program. While programs are run on machines guaranteed to interpret them identically, art is run on human fleshware, and the same piece can evoke drastically different emotions in two experiencers.