5 October 2007

Scaffolding

Understand that "predictions" of the future are usually "warnings" of the future. Orwell probably never believed that 1984 was a prediction. He was saying: let's play with the idea and take it to its extended possibilities. Art is generally a riff on potentials, not a science of predictions. Art as prediction says more about the artists' current world-views than the future. Assuming this, viewing current events as realizations of prescient art is, at best, unfair. Predictive art is philosophy, not fortune-telling.

[ posted by sstrader on 5 October 2007 at 11:31:31 PM in Culture & Society ]