How Technology Affects The Art of Creating

(Social media content creators in the wild)

“Content Creation.”

It’s a phrase that I hear a lot these days. And with the the proliferation of digital tools, new technologies and fancy startups that aim to make creation exponentially easier than ever before, it’s also something I have spent much time pondering about.

Medium is actually a great example of this. They provide an easy-to-use platform for anyone to write or read articles. Have a thought, collect some words, throw in a photo, add some search tags and “boom!”. You’re now officially one step closer to gaining fame. The internet and Medium’s smart discovery algorithms have now given you immediate potential access to hundreds of millions of people across the entire world. It might sound snarky, but I don’t mean it disparagingly. It’s pretty incredible how so many companies have been created in the last couple decades that truly give anyone the ability to try new things and pursue their interests.

For example, if you were a writer aspiring towards any recognition in the past, writing would be a tedious exercise that would go something like this: You would potentially need to learn how to write, manually write out words or type drafts on a typewriter, pitch it and then share the manuscript with a hopefully credible publisher, go through painstaking edits and the physical sharing of reams of paper, wait for days/months/years for the book to be physically printed and sent to libraries and shops and shared, and then ultimately wait some more for feedback and critical reviews and maybe if you’re lucky, some data about sales.

Now, as of 2016, it is infinitely easier. Yes, it is still difficult to come up with the idea for something to write about, and yes, you’re not guaranteed to have anyone read your work, but from a production standpoint, it’s a much less painful process.

And writing is not just the only thing. Think about the music/photography/art/game/etc platforms that have democratized creation and the sharing of it. As time marches forward, it is inevitable that things progress. But recently, it seems that the barriers for production of anything have exponentially decreased and more people are creating more things than ever before.

So, I ask: Is there such a thing as too much content creation?

For the aspiring professional: When there are millions of people taking cell phone food photos and sharing them on social media, does that hinder the success of the creative and intelligent dining journalist? Or does it do the opposite and provide the contextual contrast on just how good the work is? If a younger Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prize Winner For Criticism (yes, that’s a real thing), was just starting out today do you think he would have the same success or would he be buried amongst millions of Yelp reviews? Or is the necessity of a food journalist rendered meaningless by technology enabled community reviews?

(David with some people for scale)

For the artist: If a young Michelangelo living in 2016 had a 3D Printer and created David from a CAD (Computer Aided Design) file, would the statue ever be as famous as it now? (Yes, I know there isn’t a 3D Printer capable of handling marble, but please indulge for context). Or is the grueling process of carving marble by hand, especially in an time when a level of such artistry was so rare and revered, baked into the stone; thus making it special? Perhaps even easier to imagine, if da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s Starry Night were painted in Photoshop, would they be as revered?

Questions:

1. What production skills do you know of that have been helped or hindered by technology?
2. Should barriers-to-entry and the perseverance needed to break through them be viewed as critical to a level of considerable quality?
3. Does the cream really rise to the top? Or do dead fish as well?
4. How much value is actually placed in the production of a good? Or is it about the final result?
5. For today’s people who create in a more-manual / less-efficient way against the backdrop of technology, will their work be remembered farther into the future?
6. What do you think a museum in 2116 or 2216 look like? And what might the starring attractions be?
7. Are all these questions moot and will art and the production of whatever evolve over time; ultimately leading us to finding new ways to appreciate and value the things we create?