13. Mediocrity
I see more art [?] produced these days with less concern for quality than ever. We are drowning in images to satisfy the thirst of the “media” for information, news, gossip, to see how we dress, what we eat, what we do, and where we go ! Where did the real art go? The world is dumbed down as to what is acceptable as meaningful, insightful, innovative images yet manufacturers keep raising the amount of pixels, enabling us to see all of the mediocrity even better ! Contrary to some popular belief, mediocrity is NOT the new genius. Mediocre is average. And who wants to be an average artist? The art world turns away from average.
How we are using images has changed. Once upon a time, people put images into photo albums, as memories – images of events, weddings, birthdays, vacations, etc. Now, images are used for daily communication, social media, blogging, web sites, etc. Millions of images are put on Facebook every single day to be “social”, I guess. How many of these images are mediocre to bad? These images are certainly not uploaded to perpetuate art. Millions of images clogging up our airwaves, electronic devices, and our brains! Why? Because IPhone technology is here and anyone can take a poor image and put it out there for the world to waste time on! With smart phone technology comes the availability of hundreds of apps to make these images more or less colorful, more or less sharp, with bells, whistles and borders! How about one purposeful, poignant filter to be added to this equation? A “mediocre filter”, one that eliminates or refuses to upload boring, average, or poor images?? Wouldn’t that be interesting? How many new, good images would we then see each day? This filter is not going to happen, however, just like the price of gas will not go down to where it should be, the medical profession will never admit to a cure for HIV, and we don’t live in a racist country, do we ? It seems that some things never change. Don’t let mediocrity be one of those things. Make it a personal goal not to put any more lame images out into this world. No more drowning in the swill of mediocrity. Rise above it! Walk on water with your art, give the world something to bow down to, something to learn from, something to laugh hysterically at, something to hate, something to feel, something to remember! Do not put the world to sleep with a monotonous succession of mundane images. Say NO to mediocrity.
“ If you are going to give someone a heart attack with your art,
it should be because your work is so powerful, so beautiful,
so controversial, so unique, so provoking that it is overwhelming!
Do not clog up the arteries of the art world with the bacon grease
of banality and boring images.”
- Ken Merfeld