Technology and art in the 21st century

A couple of years ago, The Barbican Centre, London, hosted a major exhibition which explored the impact of technology on the arts over the last four decades. Digital Revolution (2014), showcased dancing drones, lasers light shows and digital games. These art forms exist today because of advances in digital art practices. Conversely, there are longstanding art forms that are now heavily influenced by technological advances such as the new distributions of music, through Sound cloud and downloads, for example, and e-book publishing.

Advances in technology incorporated into the arts is not a new phenomenon as where would the Impressionist painters be without the invention of squeezy tubes of paint so that the likes of Monet and Renoir could paint en plein air in the 1840s. I suppose what is unique to this modern marriage between technology and the fine arts is the pace and style of interconnectivity that is happening between these two disciplines right here, right now.

Take for example, social media which heavily impacts the arts through a number of different ways due to such applications as Facebook, Instagram, and Periscope etc. These platforms are not just creating audiences for the artwork, but these virtual exhibition spaces and studios create the art, display the art and also provide the opportunities to engage in dialogue and debate around the art. And not forgetting prime avenues for selling the art. Never before has the art lover enjoyed such access to the working practices of artists as they do now. As they become witnesses to the process and progress behind each finished piece as the artist is compelled to feed a constant reel of blogposts, YouTube, Vimeo updates.

This change in the way we encounter and interconnect with art is never more evident as in the use of mobile technology. With a smartphone, art has never been as mobile or as 'on demand' as it is in modern society. Technologies are advancing even further into the arts as the boundaries between the artist, viewer and consumer become blurred. Take for example the program of ‘Make Your Own Masterpiece’, with Rijksstudio as part of the Rijksmuseum, The Netherlands. Here everyday people, using an app, can view, download and turn any of the 150,000 digitised artworks from the museum's collection into new works of art and products, such as gift wrap, notebooks, and iPhone cases. These new works of art can then be sold through the studio's pop-up physical and virtual stores, meaning that technologies are making being an artist more lucrative than ever before.

What we have here is technology becoming more and more incorporated into modern art forms, moving practices forward, which isn't something new as the art tradition has never been static. What these new digital advances do reinforce is how artists are always going to be looking backwards to those who have gone before as inspiration even if using the technology of tomorrow to do so.