Literary critic Walter Benjamin affirmed in THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION that art lost its aura when it became possible to reproduce them on a mass scale. That virtuoso paintings such as Da Vinci's MONA LISA lost their mystique, because you didn't need to travel and go through a human experience, only to see it. That since it was at arm's reach, some people were actually disappointed when they walked into the Louvres Museum in Paris to see the real one.
That argument has lost its power over time, with the works of Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick and Werner Herzog (to name a few) that wowed the masses on the big screen and with the writings of Fitzgerald, Beckett, Kerouac and Haruki Murakami (just to name a few, again) that found its way into millions of hearts through printed words. The reach of the artistic aura has changed a lot, became more intimate, something you can experience in your living room, through ownership. The appeal of static forms of visual art like painting or photography has indeed dwindled and left place to art forms that you can consume in time instead. I think it has to do with mechanical reproduction and ownership too. You want to get some bang for your buck.
When art and consumerism cross roads like this, it's not without dangers. Art is made to reach out to your inner self, while products are made to be bought. So when arts gets handled by someone who's looking to make money rather than to reach out to somebody's inner self, you can end up with two kind of artistic product. First, art for people that don't like art. We're still living under the impression that any form of art is sophisticated and that it's a well seen gesture to take interest in it. James Patterson for example, writes stories for people who don't like to read. Second, you get a more corrosive object. The kind of films or books that will pull your easy strings and try to squirt emotions out of you. I'm thinking here or Michael Bay's ARMAGEDDON or more recently the TWILIGHT saga. Read NORWEGIAN WOOD, by Haruki Murakami and believe me, you will never see TWILIGHT the same way. You might not like Murakami's romance novel but it's going to break your thirst for easy solutions.
When you feel restlessness, waiting for your favorite writer's next book or even for your next anticipated video game (their artistic nature is contested, but they do use art in their structure) tell yourself that it's a manufactured emotion. Time is a vector of quality. Not always, but in most cases somebody that will take his time before releasing his book/film/game, that means the artists behind haven't cracked under the pressure to produce for money. Don't get me wrong, we live in a world controlled by money. Most artists have to bend their creativity and adjust it to tight deadlines. That's a conundrum I'm not sure we'll ever get out of.
Thoughts?