As the guilded age came to a close in the 1900s, railroad barons, industrialists and banking kingpins put money into the arts in order to launder their image and legacies. We see no such thing today. Why is that?
I’m an independent film producer in NYC who has previously acted in Hollywood studio films and sold screenplays. I’m also extremely online. I have found that wealthy techies, in general, have little to zero interest in investing in culture. This has been a source of frustration considering the large percentage of new money that comes from the sector.
I’m not alone in feeling this way: I have a friend who raises money for a non-profit theater in Boston, another who owns an art gallery in Manhattan, and another who recently retired at the LA Opera. All have said not to bother with anyone in tech. This has always bummed me out given that I genuinely believed with all of my heart and soul that the internet was going to usher in a new golden age of art, culture, and entertainment. (Yes, I was naive as a kid in the 00s.)
Art and culture can truly only thrive on patronage, especially in times of deep income inequality. Yet there are no Medicis in 2023. So what’s missing here? Where is the disconnect?
This statement alone deeply offends me; holy shit. What the average techbro would rate as ‘the imperfection of the human touch’ is the performance. I dig generative art for bases to build off of, GANs as ‘a tool in the toolbox rather than the whole entree’; but what the actual fuck is the point of art if there’s no true ‘human’ input? “Anti-human” is probably right overall.
this reminds me of a programmer who once told me that writers “input strings”
It offends me because holy shit how do you claim to be a tech person and not understand the flaws of your technology. AI likely can’t get perfect. If you want a perfect representation of yourself and your wife you can hire a photographer.