This morning I watched a DVD made by the German broadcaster ZDF; the future in 50 years time. Although it didn’t go into the matters quite deep enough (in my humble, geeky opinion) it was a very enjoyable pastime. And I cannot deny the fact that I learned a thing or two, and was inspired by one or two others. So, no bad. One thing that does sort of annoy me about those recreational and educational films, is the need for a storyline that really gets in the way of the stuff you’re actually interested in. The storyline is usually bad, the acting is actually appalling. (For those of you that have seen ‘What the bleep do we know‘, you will know what I mean. Interesting science; horrible acting, stories, SFX et cetera).

But it’s not my intention to write a documentary review here. The central thought of the DVD ‘the world in 50 years’ go me to thinking about the question what art would be like in 50 years time. A couple of posts ago I argued that painting will undoubtedly still be around, for obvious reasons and I would imagine so will music, theatre and other forms of live performances. I would expect that recorded music will by then serve as advertising for bands that you might want to go see live. You may download 3D images of sculptures and perhaps various forms of advertising will make the new Hollywood blockbuster available to you for free. Cinemas may struggle when home-cinema sets increasingly get better and allow you to download Rocky 214 in a couple of seconds time with the click of a button.

All that is about survival of the current artforms. The emergence of new media will probably also give rise to new forms of art, that we may not even dare imagine right now. 30 years ago; who would have imagined any digital art, let alone ‘internet art‘. Or 150 years ago I do not think that someone that predicted photography as an artform would have been taken seriously (catching an image on a plate? Are you mental??). One new technology that is sure to lead to new works of art, perhaps even a whole new category of art, is the possibility of creating 3D worlds that you can actually emerge in. And by that, I do not mean that you would have to put on special glasses or something. You just walk into a gallery (or not even that) and a 3D environment would be projected around you that you can interact with. I guess it is also quite safe to assume that the new artists of the future will at this moment be educated to become game designers. They have an understanding of interaction and the technical knowledge to build their visions.

Technology will surely play an increasingly important role in the world of art, as in all other aspects of life. And art wil play an important role in advancing art as well, pushing scientists forward by thinking up new dreams and creating new visions. To boldly go where no one has gone before… and beyond…

Please read this post, you might win an i-pod. Upon reading this post, we will save your ip-number and store that data on our servers. We will combine that data with the information we will obtain from your internet access provider, which they are required to store for several months by our governments. Obviously, with all that data, on all those servers, it is easy to find a backdoor somewhere and get access to your websurfing information.

By snooping around your personal surfing data we will find out what your personal interests are and start sending you some tailored spam. So far, so good. Chances are also good, that we find out where you do your online banking. From your myspace page we will find out some essential data, like your date of birth et cetera, but do not worry. We are not thieves so we won’t actually get into your accounts. Not unless we have also found out that the way you actually made that money say… you are a an international money trader or something, is by stealing it yourself. In which case we will invest it in saving rainforests and educating children on your behalf. No need to thank us. With you accounts, date of birth, and address we are set up for obtaining your social security number. Luckily for us, your government will doubtlessly have all information we need to… erm… ‘own your arse’… linked to that one number.

This will save us a lot of needless hassle. Your credit-card details, your health insurance, the amount of super-saver points from the supermarket and the products you bought to earn those, if you have any debts, if you were ever active in politics, where you work(ed), who you called on your mobile phone, when and how long, when your drove your car past what toll-booth, who you talked to at the mall (unless that person is an unknown terrorist, obviously)… this information might all prove to be useful. We don’t know for what exactly, but rest assured. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.

The great thing about all that personal data that is so conveniently linked to each other is that it provides jobs for government officials, nothing else. And it helps fight terrorism. And should you ever recover from a coma and suffer memory loss, isn’t it easy that your government can tell you all about your old life? From your favorite restaurant to your usual brand of undies. Storing and combining data is great!

But we lied about the i-pod. Sorry.

The book ‘primates and philosophers - how morality evolved’ by professor Frans de Waal tries to explain to the reader how ‘morality’ is not a unique human trait, but something that evolved. Various forms of morality can be found in other species and, not surprisingly, the nearer these species get to human species, the more evolved their sense of moral gets. That’s the basic idea. I won’t get into details about the book and whether it’s any good or not (I liked it though), if you’re interested in that, go and have a look at the Amazon reviews or something.

What I was triggered by was something de Waal wrote in between making two points about the central mater of moral: Is it ridiculous for animals to have rights? It seems to me that De Waal thinks so, because he started with something of joke in which a Gazelle was suing a leopard for chasing her. Also, he made the point: if it is okay for a fox to eat a rabbit, why should it not be okay for me to eat a rabbitThe afterthought to that would be: if it is okay to eat a rabbit to keep you alive, why would it be wrong to do medical tests on animals to keep you alive? Since I believe that De Waal is a smart man, I think it’s safe to conclude that these are thoughts shared by a lot of people, and not just the stupid ones.

I am no attacking people that meat. Nor is my central point here that it would be wrong in all cases to perform medical tests on animals if it will save human lives. I have a opninion on those matters, but I won’t bother you with that right now. What I am saying here that even if you are in favor of medicak tests andeven if you truly believe humankind consists of carnivores; that’s not an argumant to want to set up legislation for human rights. And the way I see it; it shouldn’t have to be all that difficult (De Waal seemed to think it wold even be impossible).

Shouldn’t the central point of universal human rights simply be:

And I honoustly do not believe that that’s naive. Obviously there will a lot of small matters that lawyers and legal experts need to sort out, but they’ll work it out in the end. If we, humans, have such a strong sense of morality, it should have to be that difficult to agree with such a rule of thumb. And if you are absolutely convinced that you have to have your pork sausage, steak or bacon… at least give those animals a happy life.

There seems to be a continuous stream of German painters overflowing the international artmarkets with well crafted, lushly painted imagery. In a lot of articles I have read about the subject they are categorized under the name ‘neo romantics’, which strikes me as a bit odd, but then again: what’s in name. I have no desire to go deeper into the subject anyway, heck: I wouldn’t even have mentioned it if it hadn’t been for the citymuseum of Helmond. Up until now you may never have heard of Helmond. chances are, after reading this, you will never again. However, in my humble opinion, the curator of the citymuseum in Helmond managed to pick and attract winner: the German ‘neo romantic’ painter Sven Kroner.

Kroners work actually does show a resemblance to the romantic painters; his works show idyllic landscapes, beautiful nature. Had I been even the slightest bit religious I would belief you could actually see the hand of God in his sceneries. Regular readers might know that an aspect I really like in a painting is that ’second look’ quality. Does the painting mae you look again, and if you do, does it show you new things? Kroners works do. At first he tricks you into believing that what you see is all beauty and natural wonder. Mountains, forests, lakes… but the second look gives you the horrible tourism, abandoned apartments, rusty machinery, all polluting what was once pure and wonderful.

Kroner shows us how mankind may not the blessing on earth that we hope to be, but not in a dark and angry way. With his works he makes us look in the mirror, see our faults and actually smile about it, before we understand that something needs to be done. It’s an approach that might actually prove to be very effective.

Isn’t internet just wonderful? It hasn’t turned the world economy around the way those webguru’s predicted around the millennium, but it has certainly expanded my world. It’s made discovering new exciting art from all around the world so much easier. A good example of that on the CultBlender site next week. We will showcase the work of the very talented Chilean artist Hernan Apablaza.

Hernans creations deal with marginal elements from the urban areas. He wants his works to develop their own language, beginning with a mixture and an over exposure of visual as well as audio records. More about Hernan on the CultBlender website soon.

Watch how I cleverly start a new post, while at the same time promoting an item on an alternative webpage. While I was reading through some of the answers I had received from Kendrick Mar for the e-terview (Yes, I just a made that one up, yes it’s bloody awful) with him I was writing for the cultblender site, it suddenly dawned on me: Painting as an art-form is here to stay… where a lot of digital art forms may not be.

Kendrick said something along the lines of: “Painters who prefer not to have pictures of their art taken and posted on the internet -since you can never translate a painting to a digital image- are like musicians who don’t want their music recorded to cd, since it’s always better if you hear it live.” (not a quote, free interpretation) To me, it seems there is a lot of truth in that. In Wired magazine I read an article by David Byrne (former ‘Talking Heads’ band member and recording artist) who stated that the main mistake made by the record industry when trying to find an answer to downloading of music is that they thought that they were in the music business. Which is not true. Record labels are in the business of selling containers in which you contain the music you like to listen to. Big difference. The containers are things you can hack, make copies of. The music itself however….

Music, like painting, is an analogue and organic art form. A lot of its beauty comes from the personality the artist can put in it, or even the small mistakes he or she makes. That’s why we love to see those things in real life. And it’s the whole package, all the senses are important, smelling the paint, tasting the air, feeling the connection with all the other fans in the stadium. If art is performed or seen live, you can feel it, submerge in it. And since people will want the real live experience, it will always be possible to make money of it and make a living a an artist. If you are in the business of making digital art, it may be that you find that -even though you’re brilliant- it’s almost impossible to make a living of it. Because it will always be possible to make exact copies of your work that will be spread for free as soon as it seems that you can make some money of it. That’s the internet anarchy for you.

We also see an exact opposite development. Polaroid has announced it will stop producing their films because of the success of digital photography. It seems no one develops a film anymore. Except, obviously, for those photographers that enjoy developing their own films, which will - as long as you have a vague notion about what you’re doing- always lead to better results than the pictures that come from the lab. But by developing your photos yourself, you are , again, creating an analogue version that cannot be digitally copied, because you will lose a lot of the original attraction.

Like painting, analogue photography or live music performances will never die as an art-form. Simply because the total experiences cannot be copied to a digital form, from the relative comfort of your won home.