Category: 02-Reading

Naimark’s distinction between “First Word Art” and “Last Word Art” reminds me of how fickle definitions of art are. Since coming to art school, I’ve become more passionate about making art accessible. I don’t think anybody should need a degree or an art education in order to understand someone else’s work. But at the same time, I think it’s our job as artists to defy expectations and push the possibilities of art in different directions. Since the beginning of COVID-19, there has been this exodus to a completely digital format.

I think it’s interesting to consider how we can make lasting digital art when technology evolves so fast. It’s possible that after ten or fifteen years, you might not be able to access the art due to changes in browsers, social media, etc. Additionally, the internet is so vast that a single art piece is just a drop in an ocean of other artists, ideas, and innovations. I believe one way to combat this fast paced evolution is to evolve with the technology and continuously create new pieces. However, this approach makes it difficult to make lasting art. We could also bring digital pieces into the physical world (e.g. digital prints, installations, etc.), but those could be less accessible. I think it’s exciting that the future of art is so mysterious and I hope with the tools I develop in this class, I can contribute to the new union of art and technology. 

Micheal Naimark’s “First Word Art / Last Word Art” details the differences between groundbreaking, novel work and practiced excellence in existing forms. I think technical novelty does not necessarily fit within these two categories, rather it encompasses them.

Consider the vastness of the internet and new media arts. The internet is a unique instance of both being an art media and an art platform. The technology allows for both the distribution of more traditional work as well as creating a vast space for new types of work such as generative art, interactive art, live performance art (over large distances), etc.

Technology is deeply intertwined with culture. Therefore, technical innovations create an incredible opportunity to shape culture on the part of the artists, engineers, designers who explore the first word art of the new innovation. Generally speaking, the average user of new technologies does not want to figure out what “could be,” rather be handed something that has already been figured out for them. This is more commonly referred to as overchoice.

While the technology itself may not be subject to the “first world / last word” dichotomy, the way in which we use it is. Consider the mobile game industry; first you get games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Doodle Jump, which set the tone for the next decade. Now the market is flooded with games that are way too similar, to the point where each cannot really stand out.

I found this article really interesting, and something I have wondered multiple times and discussed with a few of my professors before. This conflict between creating art that is new and innovative and never done before versus art that is focused on perfecting a medium/craft. We discussed this before in our open sculpture class talking about the exploration of mediums and processes, but finding it difficult to explore without being inspired to use unconventional methods that were already discovered (i.e. expanding foam is an unconventional tool for art but is a pretty common medium for sculptures nowadays) I found that this dilemma exists in almost every field of art, from painting to new media art.

When the article talks about finding examples that are both first word and last word art, I thought that that’s the biggest problem with the conflict. It is almost impossible to create something completely new in art, either traditionally or technologically, and nowadays artists just want to create something that is innovative but also evolving the medium and memorable. Artists would like to aspire to create work that is of lasting importance, but when technology becomes involved as a tool or a medium, there are times when it doesn’t age well because of how fast technology is evolving and how fast trends come and go. How old the interfaces and graphics used in works are easily identifiable based on trends during the time and how sophisticated technology was at the time. The works become less impactful and more about nostalgia. This dilemma between first word and last word art is very grey-scale and is not clean cut. I think it ends up depending on what the artist wants for their art at the end of the day.

• Where do you locate your interests along this spectrum?

I am more comfortable with creating last-word art, but I've always been trying to become someone that is brave enough to create first-word art. So I'd say that my current interest resides in first-word art because I want to be able to step out of my comfort zone more as an individual. I find myself trying to search for the correct answer with everything I do, and with that mindset, I will not be able to create first-word art. It's something I've always wanted to change about myself.

• We might aspire to make stuff of lasting importance, but when our work is technologically novel, it doesn’t always age well. Discuss.

When a work is technologically novel, it's naturally the first of many in the innovative field, thus it is ground-breaking since it essentially is the new ground level. Therefore, it will be the ground of future work in this field, thus years later, people may find it to be less interesting or beautiful as the later last-word art.

This was a really interesting reading to me, for one it focused on the idea of making art that is innovative and revels on defying boundaries, and then the type of art that works on perfecting a type of craft. As an artist this is something that I have been considering a lot lately, maybe not with these terms, but it has been a present question in the ways that I consider my own practice, especially as I start to veer into tech as a subject and medium of exploration. In the few decades, there has been an almost exponential advancement in the way technology is developing, I almost feel like making truly transcendental work in terms of media is almost ephemeral, it’s like we are a point in development where new forms of work and media (and combinations) are incredibly difficult to find. Or rather, making work based on innovation often feels transient.

The article sort of reaches a middle point in the idea of trying to make work that is both First Word and work that is also Last Word, and after all that is the goal? To make art that is subversive and memorable, but also work that challenges the hegemony.

Technology has somewhat distorted our idea of time, new forms of making art are emerging a lot faster, at least what is accepted by the art establishment (and what the definition of art accepts). I saw people argue that the idea of fame and memorability is something that needs to be constantly pushed, as artists we might not often have the opportunity to make a single relevant piece that becomes the talk of centuries, to be remembered there is a push to be constantly relevant as technology develops. I am not sure where I want my art to be, but I do think that I wish that what I make has the ability to be remembered.