William Oldacre Photography

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The Coming Apocalypse – er Singularity

 

Convergent series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, red, blue, vibrant, wedge, shape

Isentropic lift, 2017 — Convergent :: (click to see more)

I was thinking about how photography and music production software and equipment has improved so incredibly over my career. This has boosted the quality of work produced by artists and we’ve collectively come to expect more from artists too. The software and equipment improvements have also democratized access – lowered the barrier to entry and made it less expensive to become involved. Consequently more people have produced work, which in a feedback loop, increases our expectations over quality. What was once considered acceptable is now considered mediocre.

True, it’s become much easier to make great things – the software and equipment has leveraged our creativity to incredible levels, such that now what were once extremely difficult tasks are routine and commonplace. These improvements have also opened new vistas of cross-polination between artistic disciplines and opened up possibilities that didn’t and couldn’t exist before.

It’s difficult to project where this will lead. We humans think in linear terms and project in straight lines – but these changes have been non-linear. They’ve seen exponential growth and we aren’t well equipped to imagine that kind of change.