Technology and media-should counterculture be primitive or cutting edge(need to elaborate) - Essay Example

It assumes that one has to give up something in order to gain another. In this case, for the artist to continue his or her work, he or she has to give up the creative independence and submit to the dictates of corporate hegemony where art lacks the originality and virtuosity that ideally characterizes art but rather seeks for mainstream validation that would make it profitable thus reducing art as a mere business endeavor. Kurt Andersen made an insigthful analysis in his thought provoking article in Vanity Fair on how business corrupts art.

He argued that the contemporary artistic phenomenon and those crafted twenty years ago were basically the same in consonance to the commercial art maxim that there is nothing new or original in this universe except the artistic capacity of packaging and delivering old ideas in new forms and formats. Andersen further argued that “Lady Gaga has replaced Madonna, Adele has replaced Mariah Carey- both distinctions without a real difference… (Andersen 2).” Art then as treated by mainstream media with its corporate funding is gauge not by its “soul” or social and artistic relevance and value, but rather on its economic value.

Taking these arguments at its face value, it seems that these are extreme positions about art where nobody wins. Art by its purist form will inevitably die due to lack of resources or funding to even continue itself while commercializing it will deliberately sacrifice creativity for commercial acceptance and succes. This problematic situation warrants for an exploration of options whereby art can pursue itself by reconciling with mainstrain media without losing its creativity and artistic independence.

All is not grim for purist art however. Despite its limited resources and its effort to insulate from the dictate of mainstream media, purist art had success in the recent decades which tells that there is a chance that purist art will be “embraced by the commercial mainstream to a substantial extent (King 1)”. If it does, it means that Indie art can avail of the advantages of technology and resources present in mainstream media without selling or compromising itself. Should mainstream media embrace Indie art, the latter can then capitalize on the exploiting cutting edge options to bolster its USP of creating immense spectacles, forging larger than life creations and take over the mainstream audience with its pricy awe and grandeur.

Despite purist art recent success however, the nagging question still remains that art still needs resources to begin with its work. Without the preliminary funding to expose itself to the public, art will not have even a chance to be accepted and have mainstream validation which stresses further the reality if not inevitability of merging pure art with mainstream media. While this may sound advantageous to purist artist, this new position of pure art cohabiting with mainstream media breeds a new set of problem of defeating the essence of art.

Hibbert elaborated on this reservation saying that Indie culture not only offers to its adherents an aesthetic genre they could identify with, but it also facilitates them with a method, exploiting which they could socially differentiate themselves from the mainstream viewership (Hibbett 55). And this distinct aesthetic genre which differentiated purist art from commercial art may be corrupted or even ruined when too much technology is used as afforded by mainstream media in