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Because we focus on making things which attract attention to themselves, we artists could be perfectly suited for survival in the emergence of what blogger Michael Goldhaber calls the "attention economy".

Goldhaber's contentious thesis goes something like this:

An economy is organized around that which society finds scarce. In the middle ages, that might have been safety, and arable land. In the industrial age, money and material goods. In the information age, where millions of advertisements and media entities compete with each other for survival, the scarce entity is eyeballs and ear drums, that is, attention.

It's no longer true that a general population pays attention to a handful of stars. Thanks to the Internet, everyone today is a star to some degree. I am competing right with thousands of other semi-famous bloggers for your time and attention. If you pay attention to this article and find something in it useful, I have increased my share of "attention capital" in your mindspace, which I may be able to use to serve certain needs in the future. That is, you might become my fan, and might help me out in some way down the line (by purchasing my book, reading future works, giving me your email address, helping me promote myself, etc).

As an artist who works in various media, I have something of an advantage over non-artists in that I can make attractive objects. I may not have great financial wealth, but I can direct the flow of attention through various tricks of aesthetic seduction. It is up to me what I use this for: personal gain, social gain, or some mixture of the two.

You too, if you're reading this, most likely have some sort of artistic bent. This is your key to wealth and effectiveness in this new economy: not old money, not land and title, not stockpiles of guns nor crowns and carriages: artistry. Making pretty things. Capturing eyeballs. Capturing minds.

Use it with wisdom.

Labels: economics