Notes on the New Human iEyes, Sent from My iPhone (from the Near Future)
Images have become more dulled and flattened in the future. Illusionism and perspective have been once again forgotten. Depth has been lost by our visual insensitivity as well as the speed in the reception of images. We have disregarded the material possibilities of craft. Information is now transmitted only visually and immaterially. The print format is obsolete. Paper is a luxury for the One-half Percent who collect Material Art, which is now an ancient relic, and has more value as heating fuel to survive our extreme winters.
The art world favors Immaterial Forms. As a result, sculpture of the past is difficult to circumnavigate. The synchronous movement of eye and body is experienced as a nauseating sensory overload. Paintings blind are eye, whose sensitivity to physical pigments have atrophied among the optical homogeneity of backlit screens. The rods and cones in our retinas have become redistributed to perceive little distinction between color and value. The experience of seeing art has been reduced to a passive reception similar to viewing films.
Art is now experienced in virtual galleries and museums. Material Art masterpieces are viewed experienced in high-resolution reproduction, often virtually placed in the context of their historic buildings. Since all museums have become for-profit ventures, masterpieces have been anonymously auctioned off to the One-half Percent. The buildings themselves have been converted to luxury condominiums and hotels, and many institutional curators and employees have been rehired at commercial galleries that now also manage museums, seamlessly conjoining art in the archives of the past with art of the present. These Supramuseums have opened multiplex locations in movie theatres, since art and entertainment have merged. In the museum experience, it has become fashionable to simply look but we have long forgotten how to see. In the museum experience, it became fashionable to simply look, without understanding, but along the way, we lost the ability to see.
Greg Lindquist 