by Jon Lackman | 30 August 2010 | Uncategorized
Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education painter Laurie Fendrich asks why it is “that whenever I blog on art, the reaction is deafening silence”:
A lot of people can’t understand how art of any kind conveys meaning … At the same time, many are terribly intimidated by art—especially modern and contemporary art … The stock and trade of academics is words, not images … [And] they rarely ever try their hands at creative work … In sum, even though almost everyone reacts to works of art almost instantaneously, and even though most people, either consciously or unconsciously, ascribe to the principle that all judgments about art are by nature equal, almost everyone is insecure about their art judgments.
Excellent! This is a lovely illustration of a missing aspect of the impact of Art on the web. The actual dilemma isn’t that people are disagreeing or insecure about their opinions, this is part of the human condition – and found in online interactions on all topics.
It’s the lack of community, a difference in outlook between Art@Web practitioners that is not celebrated…and should be!
Having Art bloggers affixed to journalistic presentations is the crux to this failure – you will never engender a convincing esprit de corps in this context.
Why would people make a comment when their responses will get ignored, attacked or …even worse misunderstood?!
Fortunately, there is change in the wind. Thanks to the work of some amazing Art historians (and their amateur counterparts) on the web, Art blogs with this personal passion are slowly coming to the fore as cherished resources, and as a means to interact with these wonderful people in personal and moving way.
Art History Today, Alberti’s Window, Earthly Paradise, Arttrav, Art History Salon (etc) – these type of sites are the future of Art blogging, and the foundations of a vibrant Art History online community.
I will be starting a series of interviews with the wonderful people behind these sites – with the amazing M from Alberti’s Window as my first special guest. For those interested – it should be up by the end of Sept.
Kind Regards
H Niyazi
threepipeproblem.blogspot.com
I see two reasons why readers may fail to respond although they may be interested:
1. Lack of faith in medium of the blog / web-based conversation to produce meaningful experiences.
2. Readers may not feel the need to broadcast their opinions, particularly in such a casual medium over which they do not have ultimate control.
I think that people are intimidated by art, and I also think that many art historians are intimidated by the blogging medium. Like Jeremy mentioned, perhaps people feel like blogs can’t produce meaningful experiences (or conversations).
When I first started to blog about art history, I remember being preoccupied about the number of comments (specifically, the lack of comments) that I received. Although I am continually interested in generating discourse about a topic, I realize that will not happen with every post. I have noticed, though, that when I write posts in a more accessible manner, people will give more comments and feedback. Perhaps the real problem is that art blogs are written in an esoteric manner?
I agree with H’s point about the difficulty in fostering art community on the web. There’s only a few of us seriously blogging, and to most visitors, it might seem like a private conversation.
That leads on to M’s point about the esoteric tone that art blogging can have. I know I’m guilty of this because I’m a professional art historian whose posts are halfway between the journalistic, impressionistic style and the academic writing that I publish off-line.
I can’t figure out exactly why art historians loathe blogs. There are lots of blogs by professionals in other disciplines such as history, sociology. Why are art historians specifically so wary of publishing on-line?
it might tie in to the whole “art history should be scientific” thing from the last post. Maybe they’re off-put by the informal nature of blogs?
I would offer up two points:
first- the magic apathy of the internet
second- the find-ability of your blog post
what I mean by the first is that most people do not care enough or are not willing to put in the effort of contributing.
what I mean by the second is that if one cannot find your post in a timely fashion, then how will they comment in a timely fashion. make sure to use tags, leave lots of links, and network like there’s no tomorrow.
cheers