Did mass production take the artist out of each of us?

No way in hell my friend…You can never beat my originals…

without a doubt, it’s called capitalism. Heard of alienation? well that is what it did to us, plus made us mobile by the way, so family life nearly died alongside it. Which in turn facilitated suicides, should I go on?

@Just_Justine Capitalism existed long before industrialization. The question is about industrialization.

@josie dam! better smack my sociology Prof’ he had it all wrong??

Not at all.

@Just_Justine Did you really just say capitalism brought about suicide? If so, Bravo, that would be the most misguided anti-capitalist statement I have seen on Fluther. And thats saying a lot.

… artisan. mass distraction kills the artist.

Nothing at all. Take the fact that people can live easily without have to work for something to sustain themselves. Sacrifice the creative skill,and we get the chance to do other thing. Lets the other who posses this skill do it for us.

Ask yourself this: Could a computer be considered an artist if it were to paint a random work of art?

—@jackm OK! OK! I my one major was Sociology and capitalism. So I guess I passed because of my wonderful personality? Because goods became “fragmented” families became mobile, personal industries were lost, as families split and moved into education (specialization). Some families split and moved very far afield. Thus the family unit became degenerated. More and more families are split in terms of uncles, aunts and so on. Often this can cause lack of support and high depression rates. High depression can lead to suicide. Alienation is a factor of, I am in a profession that is depersonalised from who I really am, these are interlinked.—

@jackm I am not anti capitalism as capitalism brings about strong infrastructure which we need in the antithesis and movement to the next ruling idea. Strong infrastructure leads to well built socialism

In a way, I think mass production freed us. Once common objects could be mass produced, there was an avenue opened to explore new areas. The Impressionist period, for example, came at the same time as the rise of industrialization, and that led to other forms of painting and sculpture.

No one needed to make anything near representational art anymore, because a photograph takes care of portraiture. The same with music. Once everyone knew the popular tunes of the day from the wax cylinders, the creatives were either so sick of it or were otherwise drawn to do something different.

Now, we have all sorts of mechanisms to be creative. We can seel our art at flea markets, farmers markets, via the Web.

Mass production and plug and play did us in.

I never got beyond the hunter-gatherer stage.

Art is and always has been in the eye of the beholder. I view it as every person has a special talent of some kind that could be conceived as “art” and doesn’t always have to manifest itself on a canvass, out of stone or other traditional materials. Anything a person does that inspires their soul is art to me.

I agree, “Art is and always has been in the eye of the beholder”.
But, it is also a forgers friend.

@ChazMaz Oh boy you said there Chaz…I know a couple “real” working artists who will go ballistic if you mention copying!!

I think we’re losing touch with our connection to the material world. We live more and more in our heads, and spend very little time getting intimate with the stuff of the world. There’s a richness to learning the ways of metal, or wood, or fabric, or stone, thoroughly understanding it and negotiating with it toward an end.

Going through this process over and over makes you relate to the world differently. You feel less like a cerebral bubble floating through a land shaped only by others. You can look at the made world and instinctively understand the process that brought it about. You see past the result; it’s as if you’re touching with the mind the whole history of that object. You know what it took to get the wood to do this, or the steel to do that. It takes on a life that you can’t see otherwise.

No, but I think it’s made the artist in us more and more abstract.

I hate how when it becomes a “mass level” to society that it creates rules that don’t exist as if we are not allowed to do things outside of the box.

I think the problem is you get comfortable and safe, and if someone hears something about change EVEN in some cases when its for the better, its a total freak out.

Change is necessary for growth in my opinion, now whether its good or bad is not always known.

We have so much more access to creative activities—particularly video, photographic, written, and even computer art. And, since it seems like half the world is on the internet, it makes sense to create virtual art. People are doing all kinds of weird things. Everyone can do their own thing. No one has to pander. It’s easier than ever for weird stuff to get attention.

I don’t think it’s so much the creative impulse that’s been lost. Not really artistry at all, but rather the ability to produce what we need with out own two hands. Or to barter. One didn’t used to be able to go buy a package of roofing shingles. One made them with tools in a woodshop or traded for them with someone who could make them. Or one used thatch. The creative impulse inherent in the artist has nothing to do with the advent of industrialization, and artists will always find ways of expressing themselves.
I think what’s been lost is our willingness to even try to make things on our own. Or maybe it’s our belief that we simply can’t. Anything around the house that we fix ourselves, we regard as temporary. I realize that I’m generalizing. There are plenty of men and women out there who are fabulous do it yourself-ers. What I mean is that we have so many more options now and feel somehow constrained to use what’s available in the store as opposed to making our own. So it isn’t so much artistry as craftsmanship or, I don’t know. What’s another word? A workshop as part of the home isn’t a standard fixture anymore. We don’t make our own cloth, or sew our own clothes. Most of us wouldn’t have a clue how to make a tick mattress, or a mattress support out of some rope and holes in the bed frame. We are no longer self-sufficient. We are pretty dependent on outside sources for all that we need to survive. I couldn’t go out and hunt down game for supper. In the wild I would have no idea what plants are edible.
I say this knowing that there are a great many to whom this does not apply. Please don’t inundate me with stories about how you can survive the apocalypse. I’m talking about the vast majority of us who have allowed ourselves to become complacent and part of the fabric of our machine reliant society.
To summarize, yes something has been lost. But it has been replaced with something else, and the things that have been lost are not really lost. There are many alternative societies who have kept the old traditions alive, and there will always be craftsmen who lovingly create with their hands things of beauty and timelessness. They are more difficult to obtain, and one has to search, but…
I make soap by hand from lye and distilled water. I also crochet and do a little bit of quilting. The Amish still hand make furniture from hardwood. You can go online and find all kinds of hand crafted items. SKA and other societies maintain old traditions. Greenfield Village in Detroit and other places have people daily living and crafting the way it was done before automation. Have you seen Dale Chihuly’s work? He’s amazing and his work is done by hand (and lung).

One word. Etsy.

The artist had to find the pigments.
Grind them to a find powder and mixed properly for good consistency and color correctness.
Then the paint came in a tube.
Now it is 0’s and 1’s.

Soon you will type in a feeling and thought. A few words and out will come a painting and or sculpture. With time to do your tweeting, telling all your 15 min. friends how much a genie-ass you are.

Soulless mass production is merely something which has been added to our lives. Art doesn’t die, ad for what it’s worth in its definition, it can take the many different shapes it wants, but will always remain art.
In fact, our fast paced society which now relies on convenience destroys the souls of many, which may incite art even more, as people come up with the greatest things when on the verge of soul death.

What?

I would certainly say that mass production took the craftsman out of us. The artist remains. Indeed there is little barrier to anyone attempting to produce art – art materials are also mass-produced as are instructional videos and such.

“I would certainly say that mass production took the craftsman out of us.”

BINGO! Craftsmanship being a lost art.

No. I am a registered Native American artist, and every time I take my works to a craft fair, I get an easy sell-out. All my relatives have my stuff in their homes.

@josie Capitalism existed long before industrialization not really, in fact not at all, Capitalism is integral to a modern epoch, as opposed to say….a fuedal era, where serfdom shared similarities, but the artisans of the day weren’t merely the masters of their trade but had control over the means of production and therefore the masters of their own destiny. Industrialisation stripped that autonomy away, and created a workforce that was alienated, reduced to operating as low skilled human automaton in the service of the Bourgois Industrialist who enjoyed exclusive ownership of the means of production and therefore absolute control over any profit made and it’s distribution.

Capitalism is nothing more than laissez faire applied to the market place. Thanks for your comment. Only Karl Marx could have done it better.

@josie Capitalism is nothing more than laissez faire applied to the market place that summary was nothing more than a lazy, unfair platitude in my oppinion. Anyways, you may want to read this with regards to your question, a good question i might add.

Not at all 10 years later