However, what I really would like to talk about, while I'm in the midst of "Creativity Week," is the Instagram debate. I want to get my two cents in before I spend them on something else. With Facebook's recent acquisition of Instagram, the debate over its merits seems to be gaining attention. For a quick look at some of the debate you can visit PetaPixel and The Verge. This is the same debate that creeps up in photography every time some new advance in technology comes along. Is it art, is it not art? What is its value? There seems to be some special love/hate relationship between the practitioners of photography and the technology with which it is so entwined. This is the same debate when digital cameras first came out, when color film came out, when the first consumer cameras came out, and when photography itself was first introduced.
Art is so much more than a device or the media used. These are just the modes of communication, the clothing, they give character to the voice, but they alone do not determine whether an object is art or not art. It doesn't have much to do with Instagram, or megapixels, or Canon or Nikon, or Holga, or collodion, or daguerreotype in itself. Art is the way you live your life. It's the way you perceive and receive the world. It's the way you reflect your small piece of the human experience back onto the stage of existence, hopefully with ever increasing acuity. The chosen mode of communication is secondary.
As an artist there is a responsibility. A responsibility to yourself, to the process, and to the viewer. A responsibility to not waste anybody's time, to value the viewer and their thoughts, and to give them something that enriches their lives, something new to consider, to challenge them, or simply to enjoy. That's the intention, but it is a precarious process and there are no guarantees. When you are dealing with the abstract communication of emotions and ideas enrichment is difficult to quantify.
Right now, what's the best (or worse, depending on your side of the debate) thing that Instagram has going for it? That it's fun? Isn't fun a part of the human experience? Instagram is too new to have developed much value as an art form in terms of the institution of the art world. And here I'm talking about a broad definition of "the art world" meaning a general consensus of what is considered art along the lines of George Dickie's "institutional theory of art." Similar to photography when it was first introduced, it took time for its potential to develop and mature before it achieved "the status of candidate for appreciation." In this sense, Instagram isn't there yet, because it can't be. There hasn't been enough time for it to realize its potential and enrich its value. Much like how the bonds of a new relationship take time to develop and mature, it will take time to determine and define our relationship with Instagram.
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