Rather, disparate examples of works, each remarkable
in its own way (or altogether unremarkable), but above all
marked by characteristics that distinctly disconnect them from
the literate experience of art and literature capture our
memory. Cautionary note ended. Here are the examples: surviving
Auschwitz translated into a comic book parable populated by cats
(depicting the Nazis) and mice (depicting their victims); a
Grammy Award returned by a famous singing group because someone
else was doing the singing for them; the tear-jerkers from
Disney Studios (a company whose audience is the world), classic
stories or history turned into feminist or politically correct
musicals; paintings by a controversial artist (self-made or made
by the market?), fetching prices as high as overvalued shares of
a new Internet company, after he died of AIDS at an early age;
the never-ending parade of computer animation miracles; the Web
sites of uninterrupted aesthetic frenzy that would have
delighted Andy Warhol, one of the authentic founders of art in
the civilization of illiteracy, if anyone could pinpoint the
beginning of this civilization.
These are examples. Period. Originality, aesthetic integrity,
homogeneity, and artfulness are the exception. The process
through which these examples were produced begs qualifiers
different from art produced under the aegis of literate
expectations. Today, art is produced much faster, embodied-or
disembodied-in and disseminated through more media, and
exhausted in a shorter time-sometimes even before it comes into
being! Cycles of artistic style are abridged to the extreme of
being impossible to define.
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