Wednesday, November 12, 2008

ALTHEA THAUBERGER

ALTHEA THAUBERGER

I find the pieces described in this article very interesting because this is the issue I've had with the internet ever since the arrival of YouTube. Anyone, because of the ready access to equipment, can become an artist. Althea used this to her advantage and brought the concept out of the internet and into real space, which I like. She shows explicitly how the average person can be an artist if given the correct equipment and opportunity. The reaction to these pieces is interesting, also because it seems that the regular people (non-artists, as she says) get more meaning out of the pieces than the artists do. I think this is a shift in culture, because most people would never attempt some kind of art without training and very few non-artists would understand or even be interested in traditional art pieces, such as "Nude on a Staircase." Yet, with the arrival of the internet, any average person can download, edit, and upload to YouTube any video they want. Is this the new "modern" art? I think it is. We are entering an age where people want to be connected to others around the world, they want to be seen and heard and cared about. This YouTube phenomenon has facilitated this idea. It's a new kind of art, created by our facebook/myspace influenced culture; an art that is not traditional art at all, but rather interactive, connective, and as Emily Duke says, empathetic. Even blogs can be considered a new art in this vein. The issue I have is whether or not this is truly to be considered art in and of itself, or if art needs more thought and consideration before being considered "art." Art can be a loose term at times. I think Althea's works are definitely art because they are commenting on the new cultural shift facilitated by the internet, but are the actual videos on YouTube art? In one sense I think they are, but on the other hand, they aren't. Maybe it's just hard to let go of traditional thoughts of art that I've been learning about, and it's hard to accept something so easily constructed as being the same level of art that I've become used to. Perhaps it can be considered art, but a new strain of art that cannot be considered as "high art" but perhaps "social art." I think the term "modern" is not good enough to describe this new wave. Modern to me evokes a sense of experimentalism, unique, using found objects to make something new and interesting...but many videos on YouTube are certainly not interesting, and neither are they all a comment on any other art created. Some of them are just daily video blogs. I think in order to consider this art more carefully, it should be given a name of its own and taken seriously as a new wave of art.



No comments: