I’m not sure if social media has a good or negative effect on art.
A graphic design instructor once said to me, “To have effective advertising art, an eight year old should be able to figure out all the information in about five seconds.” He then said, “Fine art is something you spend more time with to fully appreciate.”
Social media is socializing at sixty miles per hour. Information comes at us on a fast moving tech conveyor belt. You blink and you just missed the latest cat video… because that was so thirty-six minutes ago.
My smirky take on delivery of social media
Twitter – 140 characters, because 146 characters would feel like trying to read a 900 page novel… and God knows we don’t have time for that.
Facebook – Click the “like” button… If the “like” button was too far away on the screen, it would take too long to move the mouse to click it. Do I have time to type a thoughtful comment or reply? Are you kidding? I can feel my finger nails growing just thinking about it.
Text Message – Send a text, get a text… Try not to actually call, because talking would chew up too much time and energy.
The Google – Let’s take a long walk in the park. Na… it would be easier if we just google “long walk in the park.”
Smartphones – Something more interesting is always inches away. “I’m glad we could hang-out and catch up… but I hope you don’t mind if I keep one eye on my cell phone. You see, I need to do this because I’m positive that something more interesting will need my attention. But don’t worry… because if it happens, I’ll make sure to forward it to you since you also have one eye on your cell phone.”
We don’t have the patience
“If I wanted to be a Buddhist monk, then I would be one… so don’t make your badly formatted video too long.”
I was reading about a sculpture that took the artist over three-hundred hours to make. I figured, if the artist took that much time, I should at least be able to find the time to see the short video about the sculpture… but the video was loading really slowly, so I clicked away.
You see… Art is just not fast enough.
– Bernard Katz