«I BELIEVE MEDIA IS ART»

The audience for the arts is declining, according to a recent study by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts. Attendance at live performances, museums and galleries dropped 15 per cent between 2002 and 2008, and the downward trend holds for all age groups and most educational levels. The predictable reaction: calls for enriched arts funding. However, the fact is that the arts are doing better than ever, as new technologies secure them a place at the heart of everyday life. Art and technology are ancient partners. Our ancestors created an amazing new technology more than 40,000 years ago when they first drilled holes in hollow bones to sound musical intervals. Manufactured oil paints in tubes freed 19th-century painters to take their easels outside and seize upon natural light and colour, giving us Impressionism. Without the elevator, there would be no skyscrapers and no modern city architecture – who wants to climb 89 flights of stairs?

The Globe & Mail
Jan 4 2010