Art and commodity

One thing I learnt from the very first marketing class in UNL is that - "Customers have no idea what they really want. You have to create products, introduce to customers and guide them to use it, love it, and rely

on it". This coincide with what MacDouglad believed about current music production - "taste was manufactured into people rather than developed spontaneously from their preference"(p.175). It might be right that a successful marketer needs to predict future trend of the products and market them to the customer. But from the perspective of communication, this "supply driven" mode seems go against with the objectives of communication.

"Communication is the consequence and not the intention of the artistic work." - Dewey

Today's music and other forms of artistic work lost the original value of creating arts, which was to illustrate, express and communicate. Instead, modern artistic works focus on making money. Think about it! An artistic work in today's society will be leveraged in terms of its price, the most obvious way of showing its value. But the value of the work is not limited to its price, but history, story, thoughts and social effects behind it. However, today people will simplify the indicators of the value as price only. Under this purpose, art is no longer art, but commodity. It serves as certain function to satisfy customers, rather than exist as its own to communicate with people.

When I standed in front of the Il Cenacolo or L'Ultima Cena, there was something coming into my mind. I can't express it, but I can feel it.


When I listen to Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber, I feel happy, or/and nothing. 


This might be the difference between art and commodity.