Author: Adam Limb. Adam is a freelance writer, writing primarily on the intersection of politics, technology and culture.

There has always been a tension between art and technology, both explicit and implicit. Where one arises from a very natural need to create and see oneself in the world, the other actively removes people from the world. This tension has been raised to a fever pitch with the advent of Generative AI and artists, both amateur and professional alike are some of the biggest critics of the new wave of Generative AI technology being used in creative works, if they even countenance the existence of AI technology at all.

This is not a piece about AI, or whether I feel it’s feasible to turn back the clock on any technology, not least one which is bound to shape not just the creative industry, but all industries. Instead, this is a piece about how art and technology are not so different. This perceived gap is largely a product of public relations. We encounter art as-is, and quickly learn of the people behind it. In some mediums such as television or movies, it’s impossible not to recognise the actors and to remember them from the many roles they’ve played before. Meanwhile, while everyone reading this article has used Linux directly or indirectly (in fact, I’d hazard a guess that this website is hosted on a server running Linux,) it’s rare even for dedicated technology enthusiasts (that includes you, my almost-certainly too online reader) to know the name of Linus Torvalds. Every phone comes with an SQLite database embedded in it, and yet fewer still know the name of D. Richard Hipp. In fact, despite knowing of him, I had to Google his name for this piece.

The nature of technology, its convenience and automation, removes humans from the equation in the extreme. Not only are humans no longer needed to do that which the technology automates away, technology also meets us at our needs, and we interface with it for as long as that need persists. Questions like ‘What did the creator want us to walk away from this with?’ are trivial. They wanted us to walk away from the technology with our need, whatever it is, met. If it is unmet, then we are bad at choosing technologies, or the creator is bad at making them. In the first case, there is no need to learn any names. In the latter case, we are better off not knowing them at all.

Art, however, is haunting. I once came across a nude in the window of a gallery and found myself immediately drawn to it. When I woke up that morning, I did not have a need for a nude painting – and by all accounts, I still don’t – but after walking away disappointed by the high price tag, I found myself waking up and going into town simply to check if the painting was still there. Despite working with software every day of my life, I am never drawn back to specific technologies in the way I am drawn back to certain pieces of art.

All of these dissimilarities are differences only in consumption. As most of us are just consumers and not producers of art or technology, these are the differences that hold the public focus and feed into the idea of a gap between art and technology. When it comes to production however, software development can really only be understood as a craft. In Marxism, there’s a concept of Alienated Labour, wherein Marx explains that workers under capitalism are removed from the creative element of their craft, this finds its expression in the move away from feudalism to capitalism. Where previously, a cabinet maker might source the timber, design the cabinet, and then build it, under capitalism the worker assembles furniture on an assembly line. They no longer see the object of their creation from start to finish but instead put together a product already designed by someone else and thereby give over a part of themselves to them. This is, of course, until they can be cut out entirely. In this world, even the designers of the cabinet are not craftsmen, every element of the creative process has been turned into a routine that humans can fit into to serve an end. Rather than the end being to serve humans.

I am not a Marxist or a Communist, but Marx’s focus on the shift from feudalism to capitalism does highlight an important historical decline of craft, of the process of overseeing the creation of something from start to finish, where the creator is both the architect who designs the piece, and the builder who builds them. Anyone who has created something can speak to the internal fulfilment that this process brings, and how the many processes they abandoned halfway nag at them. This process is art, and we are more inclined to call things art when they follow this process. At the very least, we call the people who engage in this process creative. At which point we are a stone’s throw away from calling them ‘creatives’ and thereby lumping them in with the artists.

Software development is close to art because it, by its nature, follows this process. When you write software, with every line you simultaneously design the architecture of the software as you build it. When the design is written, and everything just works, you are immediately hit with the sense that there is an elegance to what you have created – and you have created it. It is not uncommon for programmers to advise each other to not be too attached to what they have created, because the needs of the wider system may require you to sacrifice elegance in one domain for elegance in the wider domain. But it is still elegant. In this way, I do not see how anyone who has ever written a piece of software can say that software development and therefore technology, is opposed to art. Like artists, programmers also believe that they can take this process and put a theory to it, Object Oriented Design is akin to Functionalism in that both attempt to explain what the end of the process of craftsmanship ought to be and how to go about executing it. Artists and technologists share in the love of the process of craftsmanship, and are only opposed insofar as the beholder lacks an appreciation for technical beauty as well as aesthetic beauty.

Aesthetic beauty is easy to appreciate. Bears are known to stare at sunsets, and babies will stare more at faces which are more symmetrical. Technical beauty is a touch more difficult. Firstly, if you do not have the capacity to understand the deeper technicalities, it will always be lost on you. Secondly, the nature of technics means it meets you where you need it. I do not think either of these things mean that technical beauty is somehow lesser (or greater) than aesthetic beauty. On the first count, the prose of Shakespeare, and even more contemporary authors such as Oscar Wilde at times, can be lost on those who don’t have the capacity to decipher it. Secondly, if a work of art is used in a disposable way, that is a reflection on the consumer and not the work itself. Music does not cease to be art simply because I listen to it to entertain me as I walk to the shops. Instead, it is a reflection on me that I do not take pause to actually enjoy the art that I’m experiencing.

Artists and technologists should not hate each other. You likely found this piece via X (formerly Twitter) and are reading this on a website using technologies invented whilst you were alive. When the Internet came about in the 90s and became popular in the early 2000s, many thought it would spell the end of musicians who have their works pirated. In time, it’s become clear that piracy is a service problem. If it is easier to get things legitimately and conveniently, most would rather stay on the right side of the law, as a quick example – with the advent of Spotify, most pirating websites saw a decrease in music downloads, with Steam serving a similar purpose for gaming. Most pirates in the music scene who do not suffer from a lack of service are often those looking for music that cannot be found on the most easily accessible platforms. They are appreciators, not vandals, of art. Technology assists the promulgation of art, and allows it to reach new audiences, such as the one I am speaking to now. How many webcomics have been enabled by new technologies? How many artists from websites such as Newgrounds were empowered by technologies from Adobe Flash to the tablet? And how much poorer would we be without them?

Art and technology are similar not just in their sharing of the process of craftsmanship, they are similar in that they are positive-sum. Art takes the artist and their materials and turns their vision into one perceived and shared by the world. The time we save with technologies of convenience is what enables us to spend time appreciating this art, and the beauty of the craftsmanship that goes into making these technologies enables us to promulgate that art to the world.