From The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information by Richard A. Lanham
Let’s summarize the rules of attention-economy art as Andy [Warhol] practiced them:
- Build attention traps. Create value by manipulating the ruling attention structures. Judo, not brute force, gets the best results. Duchamp did this for a joke. Do it for a business.
- Understand the logic of the centripetal gaze and how to profit from it.
- Draw your inspiration from your audience not your muse. And keep in touch with that audience. The customer is always right. No Olympian artistic ego need apply.
- Turn the “masterpiece psychology” of conventional art upside down:
- Mass production not skilled handwork
- Mass audience not connoisseurship
- Trendiness not timelessness
- Repetition not rarity
- Objects do matter. Don’t leave the world of stuff behind while you float off in cyberspace. Conceptual art gets you nowhere. Create stuff you can sell.
- Live in the present. That’s where the value is added. Don’t build your house in eternity. “My work has no future at all. I know that. A few years. Of course my things will mean nothing.”
That subversion of the “masterpiece psychology” makes me feel all dirty. Ew.
It’s hectic hey. I found it interesting how Warhol was able to do art into a commodity. He sure was an audacious dude.
Here is a thought,
Are web 2.0 applications and other such meaning adding to attention deficits or is their function simply an attempt to reduce it, if the input of information is tailored by the individual, are they not combating the effects, by making the information that is relevant easily accessible to themselves?
A bit of a paradigm don’t you think?
Hi Grant,
Good point. In fact, if used correctly, that is exactly what they can do – help you find more relevant information based on what your needs are.
However, as there is more relevant stuff for each of us, so there is increased complexity in the info-scape, and we need to clear about what we are looking for, and disciplined in focusing on that.
hey
the ebm essay made me realise a lot af things about myself.I can’t believe how unaware i was about Information oevrlaod and the attention economy