Art's Fitness
May I justify my belief that eco art will come to represent the current era in all future histories of art:
Art has been evolving since its inception tens of thousands of years ago. Despite undergoing continual transformations, a flip through any art survey reveals these diverse entries all have one thing in common - ‘innovation’.
Those who confirm the status quo may be beloved in their own time. But they tend to fade from the historic record. Throughout the ages, it is the artist who tampers with norms and disrupts expectations that are significant in the long run.
But innovation in art does not suffice any more than mutation guarantees success within the biological realm.
Mutations can either increase or compromise the ability of the organism to survive. As in biology, an artwork survives only if its ‘fitness’ is enhanced. In ecology, ‘fitness’ of an organism is measured according to the number of offspring it produces. In biology, “the fittest survive” among competing organisms. These forms of fitness depend upon such factors as an organism’s temperature tolerance and the temperature of its habitat.
Such fitness tests can also be applied to works of art. Indeed, this connection provides the second pre-requisites for enduring significance in art. Innovations in subject matter, medium, style, and/or process of creation will ensure advantages if they share the defining feature of biological ‘fitness’ – they must evolve in a manner that is adapted to their physical environment.
Fitness’ is also known as ‘vernacular fitness’, a term that emphasizes the connection between fitness and locale. It means the requirements of the changed entity must be synchronized with the capacity of the changed environment.
The innovations within art that enjoys vernacular fitness reflect the changes that have occurred in its surrounding culture. For this reason, it seems likely that eco art will enjoy long-term survivability. This is because artists participating in the challenge of maintaining the viability and the vitality of life on Earth are engaging in a defining challenge of the contemporary era.