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To Increase the Value of Your Work, Contextualize It Purposefully
Unlocking the immense value of how people perceive your work
Over a decade ago, researchers ran an experiment, starting by generating hundreds of pieces of art and splitting the art into two groups (source, backup). One group was labelled as being part of a prestigious art gallery, and the other was labelled as computer generated.
The researchers recruited fourteen student subjects, scanned their brains with fMRI while they observed the art on a computer screen. Students preferred the art that was labelled as from a gallery more than the computer generated art.
With the very small sample size, this paper serves more as an occasion to discuss the importance of context than an actual conclusive observation. There’s a more direct implication here about A.I. art and artists, though that’s not what this blog post will cover. (Another day, I hope!)
When I previously wrote about self-promotion (more than once!), I’d framed it mostly as a distribution problem; since it was very unlikely that somebody was going to promote your work for you, you’d be better off doing it yourself.
I’d glossed over a key dimension: contextualization.
