High highs, low lows: Artists and anti-environments in the twenty-first century

Abstract

From antiquity to contemporary times, artists have served as society’s defence against unbridled technological adoption. As stressed by Marshall McLuhan, artists are those individuals who aid society in understanding the conditions of our time. In literate times the poet and the painter assumed such responsibilities, but in the digital era the artist becomes something altogether different. McLuhan defined the artists broadly as an individual in any field who was able to provide insightful information into the human actions and consciousness of their time. Similarly, Paglia argued analysts must combine ‘high with popular art, the noble with the sleazy’ (1991: 34). Thus, we are left with two pressing questions: who are the artists of the millennium? Can they still save us? The following article sought to trace who we should be considered artists in the twenty-first century and exactly what they have accomplished, or failed to accomplish, in making society aware of shifting sense ratios. Though might bemoan the obsolescence of authenticity and aura in art, Paglia astutely points out the ‘popular culture reclaims what high culture shuts out’ (1991: 34). Therefore, a survey of both high and popular art will probe the abilities and limits of artists and their art to make society aware of the effects of technological change.