Thursday

[This is the second part of yesterday's post.]

However, this dilemma reminds me of something that is happening, or has already happened, in modern art. Remember a conversation you had with a friend about Tracey Emin's My Bed. Didn't they say something like 'I could've done that myself'? He, or she, was giving a very old fashioned view that says only art made from hard work, experience, and technical skill qualifies as 'good'. This in turn is connected to the equally old view that anything worthwhile in this life takes hard work. It is troubling that anyone can put a pile of bricks together and call it art, or put their writing on the internet and call themselves a writer, but this doesn't devalue the work itself. Ease of production shouldn't affect our appreciation. So, why do I have a problem with Sky+, with its easy access to any show you want to watch at any time? Perhaps it is jealousy? Perhaps it is Western guilt that makes me reject high technology? And yet I have desktop and laptop computers, a mobile phone, an MP3 player, two TVs, Freeview, a VCR, a DVD player and a Home Cinema System. Where have I imagined there is a dividing line? None of this is 'necessary', in whatever terms. Perhaps I am afraid of change, and perhaps the answer is that we should embrace change, but always be aware of the cost of achieving it, and what was lost in doing so.