Entertainment of the Future

I've been thinking a lot about entertainment of the future, where is it going? I've had so little work the last few years, but it's been that way for lots of creative people I know around L.A. We're not retired, but we might as well be. 2-D animation is another obsolete format, it seems, but maybe so is the linear narrative.

In his important book, "Understanding Media", Marshall McLuhan pointed out that break-through media formats are often predicted by earlier art movements-- his example that the color tv had antecedents in Seurat may seem far fetched, but I have always felt that the sudden beginning of independent animation in the early 70's was somehow foreshadowing an event or media form that has yet to fully take shape. Will it be on a hand held device, or perhaps a screen right in the air in front of you, or on your clothes?

R.I.P. Video artist Nam June Paik, who died this week. Many of his video installations now sit in storage rooms because the video components require spare parts that are no longer made. I find this sort of mind boggling. For years video art was regarded as the newest, the hippest, and in such a short period of time it too has become obsolete.