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My unpopular opinion is that art generally gets better over time. The trendline from the dawn of humanity until now points upwards. There are alternating periods of creative growth and creative decline, sometimes there is regression, there were also certain fantastic works that appeared relatively early on... but still the overall pattern is one of improvement and progress, rather than a tragic tale of decline from an originary golden age.
As a corollary, I don't think that the contemporary world is artistically deficient in any unique way. Certain aspects of it are conducive to artistic creativity and certain aspects of it are not. It's complicated. Like any era.
No, for the simple reason that I would reject all earth-shattering trades of this nature by default. The chance to alter reality, the chance to redo the past, the chance to alter my own properties or capabilities... I'd just rather not. I'd rather just let things be what they will be.
I agree with you on the high aesthetic value you accord to mathematics, for what it's worth.
Art, maybe. That which is labeled as "fine art", not so much. It's largely descended into navel-gazing; perhaps photography simply broke it.
"Fine art" is just one subculture among many now. There are so many different things being made by so many different types of people. There's probably something out there that speaks to you.
People overestimate the impact that photography had on the development of modern art. All artistic media underwent drastic changes in the early 20th century. People started experimenting with atonal music and stream of consciousness writing at the same time they started experimenting with abstract painting, even though music and literature didn't undergo a similar technological revolution (I understand that the record player was emerging around this time, but that's more like a printing press for music, rather than something that makes people reevaluate what music is in the first place).
Music did; recording is more significant than you claim. But neither atonal music nor stream of consciousness writing took over the way BS took over visual art.
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