Whether it is music, film, or any other artistic work, creative pieces have a tendency to reflect the world they were created in. It doesn’t necessarily have to be some deep and meaningful work commenting on politics or social issues either. Creative works can be time capsules of language, trends, fashions, and so much more. Looking to our current time, how are we seeing present trends being represented?
Cryptocurrency
In some circles of the Internet, crypto has taken over entirely. While a little of the tremendous hype from the past decade has eased off as all things do in technology, crypto is still on the rise, and usage is getting more popular online. Casino sites in particular have adopted crypto payments quickly to the point that purely crypto sites and crypto gambling are now seen as their own distinct category within an already packed industry.
The topic has made its way into the music world with several artists dropping references into their lyrics, especially with market leader Bitcoin. The most notable of these has to be Eminem, although fittingly the vast majority of references appear in the indie and underground music scenes. Outside of music, NFT artwork has been a huge trend of late, although what exactly defines the genre is hard to grasp.
AI
In terms of modern trends being creative talking points, AI has everything else beat. Regardless of the creative discipline, artificial intelligence is impacting everyone. We are seeing record numbers of AI-produced art pieces, while in music the technology recently made the news as multiple top artists had their vocals replicated to cover tracks from elsewhere.
Outside of AI itself getting into the arts, there are more than a few representations recently of the technology within different works. The film industry has never shied away from the topic and we’ve had films like Superintelligence, Blank and I Am Mother all about AI in the last 5 years alone. While these tend to be more on the horror side, there’s also Brian and Charles for a more balanced take.
Social Media
Compared to our other two entries, social media has been in the public eye a lot longer, but because of that it has also had a lot more exposure in the creative scene. The impact of social media has been a frequent topic in music and movies for at least the last decade, although it’s in the art world that we’ve gotten the most fascinating projects.
Artist Yayoi Kasuma created an incredible installation known as the Infinity Rooms, where careful mirror placement creates endless patterns and, most importantly, the ideal ‘bait’ for Instagram influencers. People actively line up to get selfies captioned with the coveted #yayoikasuma tag, although as many observers have noted, these social media lovers have become a piece of telling performance art themselves.
While we can never be certain which direction the arts will wander in next, be sure that they’ll be guided by modern culture. After all, art does imitate life!
