Lost properties ; some arguments for and against the dematerializatoin of art

Everyone wants to be an artist. The number of under- graduate students completing fine arts degrees at US colleges doubled in the years between 1985–2010, according to the Digest of Education Statistics. But being an artist doesn’t necessarily mean making drawings or paintings or sculpture or even installations or videos. The desire to pursue a life in “fine art” simply means a desire to respond creatively to the present, just as the disciplines of “poetry” or “rock & roll” were ciphers for countercultural lifestyles in other eras.