When we look at art alongside the labor that went into creating a work of art, how do we put a price tag on the value of the creativity involved? In many cases, we let the creator decide, such as in the case of wedding pictures, or website design, etc. The creator charges a price, and we accept. In other cases, we take it upon ourselves to decide. For example, by downloading music, we effectively state that the price being asked by the creator of the music is too high. Instead of paying the asked price, we elect to pay nothing. The growth of technology inevitably risks undermining the value of artistic works and creativity.
I worry that in an age of increasing access to tools that allow everyone to be creators, we diminish our appreciation for creativity. Fancy digital cameras make way for budding photographers without the perception of a true artist. YouTube and the falling prices of video cameras create hordes of would-be Steven Spielbergs, only, they’re not Steven Spielberg. They’re not even close. Peer-to-peer file sharing creates a reality where musical pieces that took years to produce are accessible with a single click, but perhaps valuated at an even lesser price, at least in our minds.
Don’t get me wrong. Technology is democratizing and important. It allows society to free its hands to work on more difficult issues. While we are not all Stephen Spielbergs, the thought that a potential film maker, whose only barriers to creation were technological and financial ones, can finally realize his dreams is empowering. The blog-nation has brought waves of journalists who discuss the most important issues of our time by using nothing more than logic and a computer. So understand that I believe technology to be a power and necessary evolution of the creation and spreading of ideas. As technology spread, ideas spread. And as ideas spread, the ability to participate in the formation of those ideas spreads.
My concern is that by making the creation of ideas so accessible, we risk believing that the truly special ideas and creativity are not so special at all because we think to ourselves, “I could do that.” The simple feeling of “I could do that” immediately means that the work is not so special. It means that the work has less or no value. And why do we think “I could do that”? Because technology makes us believe that we can. There’s no stopping the advancement of the internet and technology, but in the process of gaining more and more access to do the things that artists do, we should not forget that artists have never been artists solely because of their technology. Artists are defined not by the existence of their tools but by how they use them. So when we look at an artistic work, instead of framing the question as “how much would I pay for this work,” we should ask “what is it the artistic merit in this work, and how much is *that* worth?”
