Does Anyone Here Speak Art and Tech?

That being said I definitely don't fit into the tech + art audience that was being defined in this article. It seems to be implied that there is a large amount of naïveté regarding art amongst techies, which is very true for the most part, and they're just looking to burn their piles of tech money on something pretty (which is certainly debatable). I study art and art history in my spare time, with a particular focus on Japanese art and Ukiyo-e: http://ukiyo-e.org/ This seems to be very rare in the tech world with few technical people being interested in the humanities, let alone art and art history.

One point I mentioned to the reporter, but was left off, was that almost all art I collect is either antique (and then acquired from auction or dealer) or if it's from a living/contemporary artist then from the artist directly. I've never met a more disdainful group of people then art dealers, especially contemporary art dealers.

It's especially surprising that the article didn't mention Artsy (http://artsy.net) considering that it's right in NYC and it's the perfect intersection of the contemporary art world and tech. They are much more connected to contemporary art galleries and dealers and are working very hard to get people connected to the art they're interested in - which seems to be largely fixing the issue(s) outlined in the article.

There is a lot of interesting work happening in tech + art right now in NYC and I'm excited to even be in the outskirts. Cool projects like:

http://www.eyebeam.org/ http://arthackday.net/god_mode/ http://www.nypl.org/collections/labs http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/ Not to mention many of the projects here: http://caa2013.thatcamp.org/

The only thing I can read in this article is "Moooom, flow of money bypassing my pockets".

This article seems to be talking exclusively of 'high art'.

Art isn't just found in galleries, and isn't necessarily for sale for a lot of money.

Obviously the NYTimes is focused on this type, but it's an important distinction.

Honestly, most of the art scene here (with some very exceptional exceptions) is boring, incestuous, and more interested in chasing trends and trying to seem cool than showing interesting work. It's way more about who you know and whether you're doing the kind of thing that happens to be the buzz today. I don't blame tech people for not wanting to be part of that. I much prefer the scene on the west coast and Europe.

The HN crowd might be interested in Devotion Gallery in Williamsburg: http://areyoudevoted.squarespace.com/ which is small, but specifically deals with the intersection of art, science, and technology. The last show dealt with augmented reality, and other shows I've seen there have involved generative algorithmic art, glitch, video games, and 3d printing. (disclosure: my girlfriend is the gallery director).

The reason for 'friction' in the art business, from my view is because it's not a traditional business. Very few galleries can actually turn a profit from sales. The few that do are in the largest cities, at the top of a mountain of unprofitable, privately funded lifestyle businesses or non-profits.

The value of art is also quite hard to quantify, especially for the outsider as the article says. The art world is confusing and insular compared to other businesses, both for new artists and collectors. The upshot is it's largely accessible from the ground up! Small venues are everywhere and desperate for eyes and dollars, everyone is invited.

I work for a company called Acoustiguide and we are delighted that the tech audience is interested in high art and culture. Our company creates apps for museums; we write educational content to help explain art and record interviews with experts, then this content is combined with images of the artwork being discussed into both Android and iOS apps. And, we are located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan!

We are proud to say that we have created content and apps for some of the world's most famous institutions. In NYC this includes MoMA and the Jewish Museum; throughout the US, this includes the Barnes Foundation, Seattle Art Museum, and Asian Art Museum; and internationally, we've done work with the Louvre, State Hermitage Museum in Russia, and Guggenheim Bilbao, among others.

We would love to share with you one of our favorites (which was made in partnership with our parent company, Espro), which was made for the iPad and explains the Detroit Industry Murals by Diego Rivera at the Detroit Institute of Art. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/detroit-industry-rivera-cour...

We hope you take a look and are happy to further discuss art history and technology!

Sincerely,

Blaire

Acoustiguide, Inc.

I would also argue, though, that an honest appreciative and humanistic approach to art and its place in our lives is to the NYC art scene as a loving physical relationship is to porn and hookers and this story seemed more concerned with the "scene" than actual art itself.

I started Gertrude (www.gertrude.co) a few months ago in NYC exactly on this thought. Instead of using technology to commodify art via an online marketplace, I am more interested in using technology to match collectors and artists so they can meet at intimate, real life one-hour events (we call them Salons, like one by Gertrude Stein).

We have help 7 Salons so far with exciting artists and will do at least one every week in the next few months. You can read more about us here: www.gertrude.co

Kenneth Schlenker

To me a lot of the "high arts" are seemingly networking events for rich people or soon to be rich people.

Maybe rich people from our generation want to put that money into starting new companies, philanthropy, or any number of other things. Why is art more important than any other good cause?

That may seem a bit confusing to read, but when you look at the typical tech-rich set, there is no inherent need to fit in with the crowd, simply for the sake of fitting-in. "The art scene" for the most part is exactly just that. Speaking as someone quite interested in art history, I can attest to the fact that the "high art" world is very much a relic from old times - when children were raised to watch their status and life was a giant popularity contest. Now that's not to say that the tech-set are impervious to elitist behavior, but tech elitism is based more heavily on talent, intelligence, and creativity. So in a way, it's a kind of elitism that is forced on the culture itself, in a pursuit for the most "innovative" way to do something. Where the art crowd admires "witty" quasi-intellectual banter, the tech-set are more likely to be interested in something, more demonstrably cool or unique to their interests. This obviously poses a dilemma for art dealers from that standpoint - how do you interest someone in something they have no interest in. It is a dilemma that art dealers face, not just with "nerds" but with anyone, really. But convincing the average Joe to be interested in your activity because "it's what the cool kids do" is a lot easier than convincing someone who may not necessarily care much for sitting at the cool kids' table.

So in a sense, the tech crowd doesn't buy into high art because it's a group that generally doesn't have any particular need to fit-in for fitting in sake, but in a larger sense, the elitism in the high art world is reliant more on popularity and everyone reading the same books and speaking the same language, which is complete anathema to a group whose principles are based more on "cool shit" than club membership.

But then again, these are just my generalizations :)

The money and greed around the first internet bubble killed off most of that.