How the internet broke Art

I am a fan of art for art’s sake. I love to see someone’s mad attempts at making chaos stand still or blowing up ennui in a wash of glitter. The joy I get from glimpsing genius — even in seed form in an otherwise obvious art-school-homework-assigned-by-a-young-and-angry-adjunct — this glimmer of genius, outside-the-box thought…. This is why I frequent art museums, free shows, and public art installations.

For example, on May 3, I sauntered over to the Oculus to view “Urban Flourish” by digital artist Robert Montengero, which promised (in a press release) to “transform the exterior of the swooping architecture into a riot of moving color and image using projection mapping, a form of “spatial augmented reality” that turns irregularly shaped objects into display surfaces.”

It was pretty:

And here is one thing I’ve observed. These days, art that looks really cool in a photo passes for great art. You might be completely underwhelmed and feel nothing while in its presence but afterward, when you look at the memento on your phone or in your Instagram feed, you think “maybe I misremembered it” and your brain overlays reality with a slightly rosier memory….this happens until suddenly you find yourself saying “yeah it was really cool, I’m so glad I went” when in reality at this particular exhibit all I heard while looking at it in a crowd of about twenty…