Modern Art with Zeroes and Ones

“GenAI will disrupt (enter some random technology/industry/market)!”

You can’t open a newspaper these days without reading about technological disruption. I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of the term “disruption.” For me, tech becomes exciting and innovative with true disruption. A similar enthusiasm arises when I think about genuine disruption in art. That’s why I chose to study modern art history over pre-1750 art history. Bear with me while I share a braindump on the faces of disruption and my passion for technology.?

The leftmost face in the image above represents a true disruption to me. It’s a sculpture by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, part of a series of multiple faces. These faces appear so strange, so distorted, that I wonder what Messerschmidt did to himself or others to create them (there are various theories). These sculptures might seem like a beautiful example of modern art, but they’re not: Messerschmidt lived in the 18th century and crafted these faces between 1770 and 1784. They are known as “character heads”, and Messerschmidt aimed to capture human grimaces, using himself as a template.?

These works were a disruption in an era when other sculptors created busts with grandeur and stateliness. Artistic change was often incremental, and while some of the “classic” artists were indeed innovative — such as Caravaggio with his use of light and shadow — it doesn’t feel truly disruptive to me. Nothing prevented Messerschmidt’s predecessors from creating similar art; there was no new technology yet to be invented. It was the (perhaps eccentric) vision of one person breaking away from the norm.?

This kind of disruption is precisely what attracts me to technology. Not the kind where any random business model or technology is labeled as disruptive, but genuine disruption. It’s about creating something unexpected, something that challenges the status quo and existing standards. Not for shock value, but out of courage and daring — the wild enthusiasm of entrepreneurs when they speak about their plans and dreams.?When I think of disruption in tech, examples like AI and cloud computing come to mind. However, just like with Messerschmidt, the technology itself isn’t the disruption.?

?Let’s be honest: cloud computing fundamentally involves hosting virtual machines (VMs). What makes it disruptive is how a public cloud offers it — the availability, agility, scalability, and flexible deployment. It’s an entirely different approach from traditional VM deployment. This disruption extends beyond infrastructure; it influences application development. We’re now building applications differently, embracing cloud-native approaches to fully leverage this disruption.?

The same applies to GenAI. The technology itself isn’t the disruption. AI was conceptualized as early as 1965, and GenAI builds upon the foundations of machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning. It’s the applications and the way we offer it that make it disruptive — just like ChatGPT. Looking at market needs from a different perspective, approaching problems in novel ways, rather than purely focusing on technological possibilities.?

That’s what makes tech exciting, interesting, and innovative for me — the modern art of today, but with zeroes and ones instead of bronze and marble. ?????

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