IMO we have had decades of iterative change and exploration, but no major shifts or innovations. Like there have been many takes on the sounds of a guitar, but when do we get to the age of distortion piano-ish thing but entirely different? It seems like most major cultural shifts come from the cauldron or crucible of hard times. We may be near such a nightmare, so what do our kids create from the ashes?
Was hearing something from an English literature professor recently. He was arguing that we were on track to have a new cultural renaissance, because historically cultural transformations have come when the ‘guardians of culture’ (the tastesetters, the academy, etc) spend all their time in ever increasing arcane and self-referential debates. Then groups from outside of the cultural institutional power start doing something very new and vibrant and it ends up transforming cultural expression.
I guess the downside is that even ‘soon’ in this context could be 50 years, and it’s quite likely you won’t recognise or like what the new art when it emerges. Renaissance art is beautiful, but at the time it was seen as base and anti-intellectual, taking the abstract symbolism of medieval art and replacing it with “this statue of a guy looks reeeealllly like a irl guy doesn’t it!” Uhh, well done Michaelangelo, I can see a naked guy whenever I go to the baths, what does your ‘art’ say about his place is the cosmic order, his eternal destiny and the state of his soul?