Hyper-Individualism & Digitality In Art

Image: James Welling, Morgan Great Hall, 2014. Inkjet print. © James Welling. Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles. | Image Source: e-flux.com

The rapid development of technology, taking place daily, in combination with its increasing accessibility, has created a co-dependency between the material and digital world. Our daily life and our consumption of time are directly linked to the digital era, while the continuous adjustment to new opportunities provided by technology forces us into an indefatigable process of redefining terms like art, work, communication and interaction.

Fairs Go Digital: Fernando Castro-Caratini bought pieces by Claudia Peña Salinas (from left, Tlatelolco and Owl, both 2018) from Embajada gallery in the online version of Frieze New York.COURTESY EMBAJADA SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO. 

The perception of daily life, through the prism of free accessibility to social networks and interaction through new mechanisms, which span from social networks to the process of creating design objects, completion of research projects and organisation of artistic digital residencies, further complicates things. It’s as if it generates a space open to communication and information while the continuous connectivity creates a new type of hyper-individual. The individualisation or better, the isolation of experience, which contains also features that appeal to the masses, constitutes a sign of the times exactly because of the continuous interaction through social media.

Livestreamed Art: A Sotheby’s auctioneer, based in London, taking virtual bids from specialists in London, New York, and Hong Kong, during an evening sale on June 29.SOTHEBY'S 

The fields of art and design are highly concerned with digitality and the new “experiences” of the object. In the last two and a half years of the pandemic, the organising of cultural events skyrocketed with the art market concentrating huge amounts of money through online auctions, thus underlining the potential of digitalization through showcasing contemporary production without geographic restrictions as well as evaluating and collecting them. So, a hyper-individual was created who, being-self sufficient, could stay active in a world that had hit pause, whether it was an artist, a buyer/collector or even a researcher/academic.

However, the issue of presence and interaction, corporeality (or spatiality) and experience, which activates all of the senses and not just seeing or hearing, as well as the surprise of having an artistic or architectural/design intervention in public space, remains unsolved and even aggrandises the question of whether a work is created to be consumed or to raise questions and put individuals “in motion”. Whom does this new, extremely contemporary art address if in the end it is exhibited only for an “insider” audience? Central social demands of our time, like free accessibility and social equality, take digital form as differently articulated issues but they don’t resemble answers to the former question. 

Screenshot of the B.20 Museum in CryptoVoxels, April 24, 2021, source: moma.org

What started as an “emergency situation exception” in the field of art and design during the public health crisis, now creates mechanisms that normalise, providing the individual with more and more progressive and advanced tools to create with. However, these new methods of production function and are consumed online, transforming corporeality into something complementary to augmented reality, that is, into something extra, which can happen on occasion to serve also the needs of the “traditional” institutions (museum, gallery, collector, fair etc). For instance: printing an NFT or actualising 3D furniture into real, functional and collectible objects.

Crisis comparison of impact on public auction revenue (3) at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips; 2008–2009 crisis versus COVID-19 crisis—as of end of June 2021.

Comparison between Beeple’s NFT auction (11 March 2021) and Christie’s worldwide monthly results in January and February 2021.

Source: How Has COVID-19 Affected the Public Auction Market? - MDPIhttps://www.mdpi.com › pdf

In fact, in the field of design, we see the rapid creation of personalities, which are established through digital platforms such as Instagram. In particular, the very easy access to the global market and the very direct communication between manufacturers, designers, collectors and institutions, make the interaction seem massive and constantly increasing, while at the same time lowering production costs while productively increasing the cost of the final product. The objects of these designers are sold in online auctions at unprecedented prices, while at the same time the creators retain the rights to resell their works/objects.

It is interesting how communication and consequently reception and acceptance (or even rejection) take the form of numbers, at first through “likes” and then through the price of an object that is digitally displayed, and how the reception of the object restores the term aesthetically pleasing to our otherwise postmodern vocabulary. Pleasing, informing and updating the individual who communicates and acquires-accumulates, the person that is connected with other users, create more and more the need to decorate and arrange the digital space. This creates hyper-identities in a really new, endless, public space: that of the network. Also, new demands arise for creators, directly from their audience, while finally the ideal conditions are created for each creator to produce on their own, cut off from the standard social condition, financially independent and independent of the "traditional" institutions and the special rules that characterise them.

Eve Sussman. 89 Seconds Atomized. 2018. 2,304 NFTs,

Of course, the digital realisation of objects makes designing an easier process by excluding the factors of material deterioration and of researching ecological material and its proper processing. At the same time, by moving away from physical space, the individual becomes "independent" of nature and what it signifies, rendering the argument for the protection of the planet again theoretical and often even thematic.

“That’s why NFTs are so great because there is a possibility to make colorful ideas with any material without thinking about the manufacturing process” says Temigue – ©Romulo Temigue | Source: designwanted.com

It is also interesting how the terms authentic and unique, in relation to these works, are redefined, as well as how they are promoted through the algorithm of each platform based on the need of the consumer, just like other products and information of any kind. Therefore, the recipient is the interested one, the person who seeks to get in touch with design or art, excluding the experiential engagement with an uninitiated audience that is not "informed".

This digital transformation in the creative and cultural industries creates the following paradox, which was analysed: Although individualised creation/construction and promotion are characteristics of democratisation of production and removal from the institutions and the exploitation they attempt, an increase in individuality is observed at the same time, completely cut off from society and public dialogue, which in fact acts and is consumed in circles that, although they are more tolerant and open, remain just as introverted, even avoiding and excluding the dangers that contact with society as a whole would bring. Thus, two speeds are created again that separate the public and further isolate the creator, who produces and consumes as a hyper-unit within a new privacy, which evokes rather the established romantic depressive version of a 19th-century artist, than the dynamic radical voices of 21st century, which aim to solve the social, economic and environmental problems that they theoretically locate and communicate through their work.

It is, we would say, a logical evolution of the isolation we have been experiencing in recent years, and it is interesting that art and design have found ways to address these issues (isolation, mental health, ecology and sexuality) theoretically and creatively, creating through this process better living-conditions. It is, however, a capitalisation in the digital space, which often over-informs without actually making a change or "functioning" socially, while further isolating individuals, with the algorithm as a referee (or even a sole operator).

Sources:

https://www.shengwenlo.com/extendable-ears

https://www.the-future-of-commerce.com/2019/01/09/what-is-hyper-individualization/

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/online-art-collecting-coronavirus-pandemic-1234573318/

How Has COVID-19 Affected the Public Auction Market? - MDPIhttps://www.mdpi.com › pdf