“All art, whether abstract or representational, is in fact anthropomorphic if one considers art not in terms of appearances but in terms of its
function and relation to human activity.”
“My conversations with computer scientists impel me to believe that these are not idle fears. Practiced in a free environment, art is political in that it reveals cultural inhibitions and symptoms of repression. Even if art is a form of metacommunication and only indirectly
political, it has much to lose by not involving itself with these extremely subtle and
potent media.”
My take away from the the article is that there are risks to creatives from technology – risks to employment and to those who make objects. Technology will eventually be able to reproduce anything that we have created.
Another idea is that the form of the media (screens / printing) have been key in us having a changed relationship with ‘art’ and that machines and humans should be considered as continuations of each other. I wonder why technology seems to still resist the the idea of showing it’s makers / designers. I think if we knew more about the people behind the things – perhaps we would find it easier to think of them as things that come from us, rather than things that do things to us?
Burnham ends the article with the idea that perhaps there is an unknowable mystery at the core of language and intercommunication (via Noam Chomsky) and that this may be where artistic practice will continue to be necessary.
Reference
Burnham, J. (2004) The Aesthetics of Intelligent Systems.
