Does our love for the past endanger creative art?

Is innovative art at risk because of our preoccupation with nostalgia?

Does our love for past things endanger new creative endeavour?

These days you can barely move without bumping into popular nostalgia.

We are assaulted by re-runs of iconic flicks and T.V. sitcoms (Die Hard, 1988, and Elf,2003, are this year’s most popular Christmas films).

Doddery or middle-aged musicians are performing stadium gigs (Noel Gallagher will turn 58 next year).

Retro clothes and revivalist video games are the most popular purchases on the High Street.

Let’s not ignore literature: writers are forever gushing about their retellings and their re-imaginings of classic tales. (Stephen Fry is one example, he's made a good living out of re-hashes, but many others do it too!)

The problem is that each financially successful re-run sacrifices another truly unique and inventive project.

• Why bother creating something new and ground-breaking when an artist can make a fortune by recycling old ideas?
  

• Why would an artist dare create something risky and radical if they know it won’t bring in the moolah?
  

• If an artist can repackage old stuff for an easy profit, what’s the incentive to take risks and be original?

Every re-use of old ideas, every re-imagining, every nostalgic trip down memory lane acts as a blanket that suffocates innovation, uniqueness, and creative genius.

This obsession with nostalgia is tedious, but there’s something more unsettling about it than dull repetitiveness. A.I. seems to be “training” audiences to prefer older art.

I worry that audiences are being conditioned to choose the familiar— it looks as if they're being trained to opt for the old-fashioned— rather being enticed into sampling something new and original.

• Let’s celebrate those who are innovative

• Let’s celebrate those who break new ground

• Let’s allow pioneers the extra space to grow

• Let’s show our appreciation for revolutionaries

• Let’s stand behind experimentalists

• Original creativity should be our focus

The future of art seems bleak; let’s work hard to preserve it.

© Neil Mach 2024