The genesis of art and the digital age

Abstract

The complete translation of cultural heritage into a digital format acutely poses the question of art’s place in the digital era. The search for an answer is built upon the foundation of proposed evolutionary models of the genesis of art. Transitional periods from one historical cultural era to the next are characterized by a change in the most popular types of art. The establishment of one or another type of art is rigidly connected with the introduction of new data storage media and coding techniques. The constant increase in the variety of genres and media has culminated in the digital display. The appearance of a universal digital media must be reflected in the energetic reconstruction of the artistic world, but the birth of new types of art will lag behind. Moreover, the problem of the existence or non-existence of art also becomes relevant. In parallel with the elimination of literature, a virtual excarnation of object plasticity is occurring. It is possible that art is irreversibly forsaking sensual and bodily language, but the idea that it is using such an unexpected lexicon in an attempt to break through to the individual directly seems more productive. The purpose of art is to expand the space of consciousness. The digital age is distinguished by its possibility to transform this space in surprising ways. Digitalization of a work has a clear basic similarity to the physiological process of convolution of a sensory signal in the depths of the brain. Computer-based dipoles and neural synapses are binary structures, described in binary symbols. A work that has been translated into digits can be seen as the projection of a certain neural configuration that has come together in the depths of consciousness and is revealed in the form of an image. The likely prospects of obtaining, instead of projections, a multi-dimensional digital display, as well as the potential possibility for the psyche to adequately decipher it, portend a holistic reading of the work and even closer contact between the artist and the addressee. Right on the horizon is the path towards a synthesis of images that go beyond the limits of the usual forms and sensations. And nowadays unimaginable classes of feelings are capable of generating many vibrant “types and genres”. At the same time, threatening to the habitual methods of sensory perception and facilitating the liberation of the spirit, the excarnation of art works promise a categorically new stage in the genesis of art as well as a different level of creation and perception.