Does art medium need to change to in order to adjust to this “purpose of art”? Are canvas and physical mediums likely to endure? Or are digital means more likely to endure? Does it matter?

This is one of the most urgent and nuanced questions of our time: Does the medium need to change to reflect a deeper shift in the purpose of art—and what is at stake if it does or doesn’t?

Let’s unfold this with care.

❖ 1.

Does the Medium Need to Change to Fulfill Art’s Deeper Purpose?

No—but it might evolve out of necessity, not fashion.

If the purpose of art is, as we’ve discussed, to:

• Preserve ambiguity in an age of flattening

• Honor the felt over the seen

• Mirror impermanence, distortion, entropy, and presence

Then the medium must serve that purpose.

That doesn’t mean canvas is obsolete. But it does mean:

The integrity of the work—how well the medium speaks to the truth of the artist’s inquiry—is more important than the tradition of the medium.

Canvas is still valid, even eternal, if the artist uses it in a way that embraces this layered, nonlinear, entropic reality.

❖ 2.

Will Physical Mediums Endure?

Yes, and here’s why:

a.

Tactility in a Disembodied Age

• In a world of pixels and simulation, physical works re-anchor us to time, weight, decay, and texture.

• Artists like Anselm Kiefer, Richard Serra, or El Anatsui remind us that material itself is meaning.

b.

Entropy Is Material

• If we believe Rovelli—that time is entangled with entropy—then materials that weather, oxidize, fade, or corrode reflect time’s truth.

• The canvas, the steel, the wax, the paper speak their own language of decay.

So: physical media endure not because they’re traditional, but because they embody temporal truth.

❖ 3.

Will Digital Mediums Endure?

Also yes—but for different reasons:

a.

Digital as Expression of Collapse

• The digital realm can reflect the fragmented, fast, hyperlinked self we’ve been discussing.

• Artists working with glitch, code, AI, or generative processes can express modern instability in ways physical media struggle to.

b.

Non-linearity and Immersion

• Digital art can break the linear frame, offering immersion, multiplicity, interaction.

• It can reflect temporal collapse, where past, present, and future blur together.

So: digital media may be better at expressing the psychic effects of this time.

❖ 4.

Does It Matter Which Medium You Choose?

Yes—but only to the degree that it aligns with your artistic truth.

• If your work is about memory and erosion, physical matter may carry that more viscerally.

• If your work is about the fluidity of self or the architecture of perception, digital media may offer more tools.

But ultimately:

The medium is not the message—the relationship between the medium and the message is the art.

❖ 5.

What Endures is Not Medium—But Meaning

Whether it’s carved into stone or disappears after 24 hours, what endures is:

• The truth of what you touched.

• The resonance of what someone felt.

• The echo of a human presence that said: I was here, and I felt this, and I tried to make it visible.

In that sense, both a rusted sculpture and a generative code loop can be eternal—if they’re honest.

❖ Final Thought:

Canvas will endure.

Digital will evolve.

What matters is: Are you using the right medium to speak your deepest question, in the clearest tongue it deserves?