Times they are changing.  So is culture. Technology is a driver. We are in its midst.  This online experience we are sharing at this moment is just one example.  Your love of your smart phone is another.  My art is about that.  That sentiment, that experience. The old art circles are out of touch.  They don’t get it.  Youth get it. The tech crowd gets it.  The youthful tech crowd has seizures over it.   They are my prime audience.  Art for the blind is another – and I am serious.   People who find modern art boring or obnoxious are another.  There may be others I have not yet discovered. I’m curious and looking.

The following illustration describes my observations of people of different sorts responding to my art which I have dubbed “Tech-Expressionism”.

Considering this diagram depicting my observations of who gets it and who doesn’t; Youthful techies are my primary audience. Youth in general are fairly techie by default just because of the world they grew up in. So they get it as well, though maybe with slightly less excitement. Old techies, like me and my IT peers get it because we see and have seen the impact on our own lives and the changes to culture around us because of technology. We are part of it. This is our world an we are actively involved in changing it ourselves. Older non-techie people don’t get it. They, like everyone, are fully aware of the changes to our world, but they typically lack the deep first-hand experience that makes the full connection to art that is about that experience.

Now here’s the kicker. The traditional art community, though not entirely, falls into the non-youthful, non-techie category. Hence, I do not expect much from them. The vestiges of traditional art are still very strong. I’m not sure what they make of this.  Perhaps they think it amounts to drawing portrait of your dog or photographing what you had for lunch.  I don’t really know or care.  Bottom line: they don’t get it probably never will.  I’ve encountered that before with people who cannot see the significance of a technology, event or idea, though its flaming in front of them. I’ve learned its best to step right past them. They will never understand, though they will eventually follow.

And strangely, much of what is considered contemporary art seems to either deliberately evade technology altogether or embraces it so fully that it simply becomes part of the machine. Contemporary art seems to be fixated on body parts like an adollescent, or about being offensive for offensiveness sake with nothing really worthwhile to say, but that’s another discussion.  My point is that I don’t expect much from that sector either.

Artistic commentary outside the glass about what is happening inside the glass and its impact is totally rare. That is what makes these pieces unique and important.

And I believe these pieces are important.  It is an art statement of our time as the work of Andy Warhol was to his. Call it pop-culture if you want, but I belive it is deeper than the word pop suggests. It is about massive and rapid impact worldwide on people, families, communities, and cultures.  It is about a new and continuously changing way of life due to ubiquitous computing in our palm and in the cloud.  And we should have tons to say about it, including through art.

Some People ask for the Moon
Here’s the “dis”; I have never really liked the art establishment. At best, it is a fickle alliance of cultural and sociological dichotomies.  At worst, it can be a hair ball of obnoxious brats dipped in a mixture of both fresh and stale snobbery, a conglomerate of gold digging, ass-kissing, power-mongering hypocrisy. Somewhere in the midst is the noble thing art is supposed to be, but like religion, politics, and other fields where money, power, and egos come to play, art can get pretty f’d up.

Lest my friends in the art community be offended, just consider that I am of course not talking about you, but all those other people and you will heartily agree with me.   Got that?

Still, I enjoy connecting with art people, art things, and art events. Obviously, I like to make art and like my audience. By the way, I have observed that actually “liking my audience” makes me different from many contemporary artists who seem to have only contempt for their audiences.  Disrespect for one’s audience is a characteristic I loathe.  The weird thing is that audiences seem to like being abused because they tend to elevate artists that are the most abusive to them.  Like a battered lover clinging to an abusive “lover”, some seem to feel that being a self-centered villain is what makes an artist.  Go figure.  I hate that and won’t subscribe to it.  If that’s the rules game, count me out.

I like my audience. If you enjoy my art, that makes my day.  If you don’t, that’s okay too.  I don’t need you to like it.   I like it and will keep on doing it.   If you are an art establishment person, you can like it or not and I don’t really care one way or another. Your fickle agendas are not my preoccupation.

I am pleased with the audience that I have found.  It is the one that matters. And I will try to respond even more to and learn from this audience.  I am excited to see where this leads.

- roger